Chapter Text
Steve Rogers believed he was adjusting to unexpectedly waking up in a new century – hell, a new millennium – much better than anyone, including himself, ever would have expected. After the massive clusterfuck that had been the Chitauri and Loki, and after the smoke, dust, and dirt of the cleanup subsided, Steve spent several weeks of leave locked up in his new apartment in DC (courtesy of SHIELD, though Steve still wasn’t certain how he felt about the entire organization) getting to know this new world he found himself in. The internet, and the local library, both proved to be valuable resources in his attempt to catch up with the 21st century. Beyond all the social and political changes that had overhauled the American cultural landscape in his time in ice, the gestures and mannerisms of the new world would often overwhelm him with their alienness (part of the reason he had clashed so viciously with Tony, he could acknowledge in retrospect, was because of how fully the man embodied this new century, and how confusing and disconcerting he found that). It was also interspersed with a judicious sprinkling of pop culture, largely thanks to the various members of the Avengers (mainly Tony) who messaged him anything they thought was absolutely necessary to understanding the modern world. Unless, of course, they choose to simply show up at his place with DVDs and popcorn in hand whenever they were in DC (since it was usually Natasha taking that particular liberty, he didn’t really mind). He found The Rocky Horror Picture Show – courtesy of Clint – both amusing and strange, even if he didn’t particularly appreciate Clint’s new insistence on calling him Rocky, but didn’t understand why Tony would have ever thought he would enjoy Inglourious Basterds – “they’re just like the Commandos!”, Tony had enthused. Natasha had got him to watch Everything is Illuminated, which made him cry, and Spirited Away, which had resulted in them marathoning every Studio Ghibli movie ever made.
They had also all sat him down one night and made him watch every Captain America movie made since he went into the ice – the one from the 70s was particularly atrocious, but (and he would never admit to this) he kind of loved Guillermo del Toro’s 2004 film. Tony also kept sending him porn parodies, but after the first (horrifying) experience, he began googling the title of everything Tony sent him before watching the film.
All in all, he emerged from his apartment very thankful for the internet, and feeling that even if he didn’t know everything that had happened while he was on ice, he at least had a decent grasp of it.
Unfortunately, while he had gathered at least a cursory appreciation for modern celebrity culture and the paparazzi from the internet (googling his teammate’s names had turned out to be a grievous error, and he now knew far more about Tony Stark’s private life than he ever would have cared to be privy to, and had also vowed to give Bruce a really good hug the next time he saw the doctor), he really wasn’t expecting it to apply to him, and was thus thoroughly surprised and horrified the first time a cluster of photographers greeted him outside of a grocery store with flashing cameras and shouting questions. After the first couple of encounters, which consisted of Steve politely trying to answer everyone’s questions to the best of his ability, he was informed by an all-too-amused Tony Stark that really, he would probably be better off just ignoring them (it was when Natasha dryly made the same observation on their next mission, though, that he actually began to follow their advice). Still, the paparazzi were persistent (like mold, Clint offered, far too cheerfully) and Steve tried his best to be polite, and at least answer a question or two, though he wasn’t too proud to admit that he was occasionally reduced to hiding in bushes to avoid the constant onslaught.
However, press conferences were still an unfortunate and necessary part of his job, especially as he was by far the most press friendly of the Avengers, and he often took lead when offering comments on the latest alien invasion/robot attack/giant sea creature appearance, though at least a couple of his teammates were often to be found hovering in the background, looking put out and cranky, their silent support nevertheless making him feel slightly better about being forced into the spotlight again and again. One of the first things SHIELD had done when he had reemerged into the world was assign him a PR manager, and while Steve might not agree with everything Ms. Red told him to say, he was a soldier, and understood the importance of presenting a united front, and as such resisted the urge to stray from the party line. Most of the time. Well, some of the time. Probably less than SHIELD would like, given that Ms. Red had long ago stopped politely correcting him and now just greeted him with an exasperated “Steve. For fuck’s sake” after leaving the stage of press conferences.
It was one such press conference, after the Avengers had managed to stop a large group of giant, cyborg sea lions from destroying Seattle (honestly, Steve had no idea how this had become his life) that Steve first encountered what would quickly become a favourite line of questioning amongst the reporters who harassed him.
“Captain.” Steve nodded towards the man who spoke, indicating he would take his question next.
“Captain, how do you feel about having a woman on the team?” Steve shot the man a puzzled glance, before shooting a look behind him at Natasha, who was no longer leaning sleepily on the Hulk’s considerable mass, but was standing rigidly, staring coldly at the reporter. Steve had to resist the urge to shiver. He was very, very happy he had never ended up on her bad side. Peggy had only shot at him. He really didn’t like to think what the Black Widow would do. Turning back to the reporter, Steve stumbled out,
“Um, good?” He heard a snort from behind him, but didn’t look to see which one of his teammates was making fun of him now. “Black Widow is a valuable part of the team, and an excellent asset in a fight.”
“Yeah,” the reporter drawled back, “but that wasn’t really the way it was done in your day, was it? Isn’t her lack of physical strength, or any superhuman abilities at all really, a detriment to the team overall?” Steve blinked. He was way too fucking tired for this.
Steve could now almost physically feel Natasha’s stare where it passed by him to land on the reporter. He had no idea how or why the man was still talking and not running away. Clearly he wasn’t very smart.
The thing was, since coming out of the ice Steve had gotten very, very good at playing the ‘aw shucks, just a guy from the ‘40s’ card. For one thing, it seemed rather expected of him, though he didn’t understand why people thought he wouldn’t at least attempt to catch up. But reporters, and many of the SHIELD agents he encountered, would simply assume that he had no idea what had changed while he was in the ice. So he could easily skate by a lot of controversial questions by playing ignorant. Which would make his PR manager happy. And often he did, because he enjoyed the tactical advantage consistently being underestimated gave him (after all, if his enemies thought him a naive leftover from a bygone era, they would be really surprised when he managed to hack their systems). So he played clueless (there were an awful lot of photos showing him staring in confusing at the cell phone that he had in fact figured out within a couple of days).
But he had just spent most of the day battling cyborg sea lions (again, what. The. Hell) and was not in the mood to play nice. So he put on his best Captain America smile, and injected his voice with as much syrupy sweetness as he could.
“Y’know, growing up in Brooklyn, there was this dame, Colleen, lived just down the hall.” The reporter gave a slow blink. He obviously hadn’t been expecting that.
“I...” was all he got out before Steve continued, talking over him, smile firmly plastered in place.
“Now, we didn’t live in the nicest of neighborhoods, growin‘ up like we did, and a single woman living alone… well to certain type of people, they saw that as an invitation.”
“Buck and I tried to look out for Colleen, best we could, but it was the Depression, and it was just about all anyone could do to stay alive. But one day, we’re coming home, and we see Colleen being harassed by this group of fellas. Big, tough guys from the docks. So Buck and I are headed over, when one of the guys decides to get physical, and grabs her round the arm. Well, before we could even blink, the guy was on the ground, groanin‘ and grabbin‘ his stomach.”
“He was quickly followed by all his pals. See, Colleen liked to keep a brick in her purse. So when these fellas decided to get fresh, she decided to give them internal bleedin’.” Steve paused. The reporter was still staring at him, now shifting slightly from foot to foot.
“Colleen couldn’t have fought those men off if it had been just her physical strength against theirs. But she was smart and she was capable. And so is the Black Widow. There ain’t been a time in the history of this world where dames haven’t been just as capable of fighting as men, if not more, seein’ as how they’re a good deal smarter than most of us, certainly you. Black Widow is highly trained and more than qualified for the position she holds on our team, superhuman abilities or no.” Steve could see the man opening his fool mouth again, and cut him off with a curt “If you’ll excuse us, we have cleanup to see to.” before turning back towards his team. He watched as Natasha maintained eye contact with the reporter for several more long seconds, before turning her head to smile up at him. He gave her back a grin and a wink.
(Really Steve? Ms. Red seethed at him the next time he saw her. You really couldn’t restrain yourself even a little bit?)
The next time he encountered a reporter determined to pursue that same line of questioning, he was jammed in amongst the smattering of reporters camped out in front of his favourite cafe. It was annoying that they had figured out that this cafe was his favourite before he became better at going out incognito, but he refused to change, loving its dingy atmosphere, its exposed brick walls, and the large windows upstairs that gave a beautiful view over DC. Besides, the baristas all knew his order, and had long ago gotten over being flustered by making Captain America’s coffee, and instead just joked with Steve Rogers about his caffeine dependency (a lie: it did nothing since the serum, he just liked the taste, and the high calorie count) and addiction to their apple-pecan muffins (true: they were delicious).
“Captain! Captain!” Steve sighed inwardly before turning his best polite-but-utterly-meaningless smile on the smattering of reporters.
After several easy questions, including one on his favourite new food (pad thai – Steve had discovered, thanks to Bruce, a great fondness for food so spicy it made his eyes water), an older reporter managed to push his way to the front of the pack, shoving his recorder out at Steve.
“What do you think of the President’s assertion in the state of the union that men make more money than women, and that we should have legislation regulating equal pay for equal work? Isn’t that gap just down to women making different choices with regards to having children?” Steve treated the man to a long blink, organizing his thoughts and sending a quick mental apology to Ms. Red.
“Well sir, I certainly believe that women didn’t ask to be the only group biologically capable of having children, though,” he added after a moment “that is a rather narrow definition of women, my apologies.” The reporter’s eyebrows were crawling towards his hairline.
“To be quite frank sir, I firmly believe that women are treated unfairly by government and corporations alike, and a great deal of attention needs to be paid to the systems that allowed this inequality to develop and continue to exist at all levels.”
“So you don’t think the figure of 77 cents to a dollar has been grossly exaggerated by the Census Bureau, as has been suggested by the Washington Post?” The reporter had clearly recovered, and was visibly excited to be getting such incendiary replies from Captain America.
“No, I don’t” Steve replied firmly. “However, I do believe that citing that figure oversimplifies the issue greatly. After all, unequal pay does not just affect women; did you know that people of colour also make less money than white men? While men earn more overall, while hispanic and black men earn less to the dollar than white men. And the situation is even worse for women of colour. In 2010 the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that black women earned 69.6 to a white man’s dollar, and hispanic women even less at 59.8.” The reporter was now clearly torn between delight and outrage.
“But don’t women, and certainly African American woman, simply enter fields that pay less? That can’t be the fault of the system, when they are the ones choosing to become teachers or nurses, rather than lawyers?”
“Yes, but that ignores the social systems and the various way the educational system fails woman, which leads them to those fields. Not to mention the systemic undervaluing of those fields, which are so necessary to our society.” The reporter opened his mouth to counter, but Steve cut him off with a curt wave of his hand, “You’ll have to excuse me sir, I have business to attend to; however, if you would like to educate yourself on the nonsense you choose to spout at me beforehand, I would be happy to continue this conversation at another time.” He walked away to the sound of reporters calling after him, his mouth pressed tightly shut to stop himself from saying anything else.
(Y’know, Ms. Red said, sounding thoughtful, it would be so much easier to be angry at you for being such a shit disturber if I didn’t agree with everything you said)