A/N: This is my first story with a major OC character. I hope you like it.

Bought the T-Shirt

Maria Hill entered the SHIELD Clerical Office, where rows of young men and women sat at computers entering and sorting data from reports. They chatted as they worked, everyone in a twitter (lower case only, upper case would be a violation of organizational secrecy) about the recently revived Super Soldier and his escape from SHIELD HQ.

"Such a body," a young woman sighed. "I would definitely tap that."

"Who wouldn't?" a young man said, getting murmurs of agreement from around the room.

When she saw Hill at the counter, one of the clerks left her machine. "Deputy Director, how may we help you?"

"I'm looking for someone to introduce Captain Rogers to the 21st century," Maria said dryly.

"I volunteer!" The young man's hand shot up, along with half the room.

"It's not nice to tease the children, Maria," chided a voice from the back of the office.

Through a door at the very back, Maria could see ranks of filing cabinets and doors leading off into storage spaces deep in the bowels of the building where only the bravest dared explore.

All the clerks stiffened to attention. Their eyes locked on their screens and their fingers flew faster, when they heard that voice.

"I already told you I'd do it, poor man," the woman continued.

Senior Clerk Leslie Reynolds emerged from her domain, running a critical eye over her hard working crew. The 60-year-old woman wore blue crinkle slacks with a white blouse and a navy blazer. She was short, just a tick over 5-feet tall, and carried about 20 pounds more than she ought to. Her shoulder-length hair was mousy brown. You could only see threads of gray in it if you peered closely, which nobody dared to do because this was her domain and had been for more than 30 years.

"Imagine leaving him at the mercy of one of these man-eaters," Leslie said, shaking her head and pushing her glasses farther up her nose.

"What a waste," a woman lamented. "You're so ..." The woman stopped herself from saying the last word.

"Old?" Leslie said it for her. "That's kind of the point. I grew up on the edge of his time. I remember things like milkmen and party lines and rotary phones. I saw the 20th century develop into the 21st, so I can understand him better than you babies who teethed on smartphones."

"Yes, ma'am," the woman said in disappointment.

"Are you ready to go?" Maria asked Leslie.

"I was just packing a few things," the older woman answered.

She hauled a large wheeled suitcase out of the back room.

"Just a few things?" Maria said in amusement, eying the large suitcase.

"I just thought I'd bring a few things to make the captain feel more at home," Leslie retorted. "Plus my own gear, of course. Since you said I'd be staying at least a week."

There was a concerted groan from her department. "A week with Steve Rogers!" someone moaned enviously.

"A week showing a foreign visitor around New York," Leslie corrected sharply. "What happens here, stays here." Her team might gossip among themselves, but never outside the office, not even to other SHIELD personnel.

"Yes, Les!" the crowd chorused, then giggled, amused by the rhyme (which they used all the time).

"Children!" Leslie groaned to Maria, but there was a twinkle in the clerk's eyes.

A doorman opened the front door of the discreet SHIELD apartment building. If Maria and Leslie hadn't been expected and identified by facial recognition on the sidewalk, they never would have gotten inside. A concierge nodded from a desk in the lobby that concealed a dozen security monitors.

Leslie knew the doorman and the concierge were heavily armed and ready to repel attackers. She was glad she was expected. Her unarmed combat skills were nonexistent.

Leslie towed her wheeled suitcase across a patterned runner that she knew concealed an X-ray machine like those at airports.

The concierge raised an eyebrow at Leslie when he saw the odd shapes of things in her suitcase. She made a face at him, forcing him to fight a smile.

Maria planted her palm on the scanner beside the door and spoke an identification phrase into the panel in a voice too low for even Leslie to hear. The code and her voice opened the elevator.

The two women rode up in silence and went down the hall to an apartment.

Maria repeated the identification procedure at the door, then she politely knocked but entered without waiting for a response.

Leslie lifted her weighty suitcase over the threshold, then stopped just inside the door.

A young blonde woman in maroon nurse's scrubs chattered to a young blond man sitting beside her on the couch. There was a bleak, blank expression on the man's face, but he peered politely at the cellphone the nurse held up, while she paged through photos on the screen.

"This is Crockett sitting on Robbie's head. Doesn't he look like a mountain man's coonskin cap?" she asked.

Captain Steve Rogers agreed that the cat's fluffy tabby tail did look like a coonskin cap on her fiancé's head.

When Maria and Leslie entered, Steve immediately stood with ingrained politeness. He saw the suitcase and offered to help Leslie with it.

"Not necessary, captain," she replied. She pushed a button to raise the handle, then she towed the wheeled suitcase deeper into the room.

Steve's eyes brightened with appreciative curiosity.

"That's very clever," he said. For a moment he forgot his troubles as he learned something new.

Leslie mentally patted herself on her back for getting that smile from him. Her basic plan was to reveal new things like a magic trick, to intrigue the captain without scaring him. Everything she knew about him said he wasn't dumb. She didn't want to treat him as if he was.

"I lugged a big old suitcase back and forth to college. I was so happy when they put wheels on suitcases," Leslie said.

"Captain Rogers, this is Leslie Reynolds," Maria Hill made the introductions and Leslie offered her hand.

Steve's handshake was gentle but firm, perfectly judged. Leslie could write a book about handshakes. She hated the people, not all of them men, who squeezed her hand so hard her bones ground together.

"It's an honor to meet you, captain," she said.

"Thank you, Agent Reynolds."

"Oh, I'm not an agent, captain. I'm a file clerk," Leslie said impishly. "And you can call me, Leslie."

"Please call me, Steve," he responded automatically, even as he turned to Maria with a question in his eyes. "Um, didn't you say my … awakening is top secret?"

"And you're wondering how a file clerk rates," Maria suggested.

Steve looked an apology at Leslie who smiled kindly.

"She's not just a file clerk," Maria said. "She's Director Fury's file clerk. She knows where all the bodies are buried."

"Sometimes literally," Leslie murmured.

"She can be trusted," Maria finished. "She has been trusted for nearly 35 years. She's been with SHIELD longer than I have. Longer than I've been alive, actually."

"The main reason they chose me was my age, Cap … Steve," Leslie corrected herself. "I was born in the mid-1950s. I've seen most of the changes that kids take for granted these days. I'm young enough to be your daughter, but, by apparent age, I'm old enough to be your mother. I can deal with today's technology, but I remember growing up without it. I think I'll be able to understand most of your questions."

"Bourkin acted like the captain was an idiot," the nurse, Melody Harris, volunteered with disapproval. She had packed up her medical gear and was getting ready to leave. "Just because the captain didn't understand what he meant by internet and streaming. And when I said the captain needed a landline, he sneered at me and installed that monstrosity."

She pointed at a huge cordless phone plugged into the wall.

"It looks like a walkie-talkie, but with more buttons," Steve volunteered, eying the device with suspicion. It did remind Leslie of World War II era walkie-talkies.

"I told Bourkin to get out and we'd get someone with manners to install the rest of the electronics," Melody said, her Southern accent getting stronger in remembered agitation. "He said he'd report me. I said I wasn't the one who'd be in trouble," Melody said with a flip of her head. As the medical professional, she had the right to remove anyone who was annoying her patient.

Maria's eyes narrowed in anger. "I'll see to it," she said shortly.

"You don't have to send anyone for the electronics. Steve and I will plug everything in," Leslie said. "It's good practice. In the meantime …" She zipped open her suitcase, rummaged for a moment, then pulled out a recognizable telephone. Steve sighed in relief.

"It has buttons instead of a dial, but it's got to be simpler than this thing." Leslie unplugged the cordless phone and plugged in the simpler phone. She checked the handset for a dial tone, nodded in satisfaction, and hung up again. "It even rings," she told Melody and Maria.

"What else would it do?" Steve asked.

"Some phones buzz or play tunes. This is more old school."

"Old school. Is that what I am?" Steve asked a little sadly.

Melody patted his arm. "It's not a bad thing," she assured him. "Old school in in right now."

"Melody, were you boring Captain Rogers with your cat photos?" Leslie teased, as a distraction.

The nurse looked momentarily guilty, but Steve assured her and Leslie that he was grateful for Melody's conversation.

"I didn't want to talk, or even think," he confessed, the overwhelmed, shell-shocked look returning to his eyes.

Melody patted his arm again. "Don't worry, Leslie will take care of you," she promised. "She's like everyone's favorite aunt."

"Not everyone's favorite," Leslie said dryly.

"Everyone who matters; everyone who has manners," the girl retorted.

"We picked Melody to stay with you because she always knows when patients want to talk and when they don't. I promise, she's as good a listener as she is a talker," Leslie said.

Melody smiled brightly at the compliment.

"Thank you, Miss Harris," Maria said, dismissing the nurse.

"Ah, back to work," Melody sighed. "It was a pleasure meeting you, captain," she said, offering her hand.

"Thank you for your help," Steve answered.

Melody gave them all bright smiles and left the room. When the door closed behind her, Leslie said, "Another reason we picked Melody is that she would be professional and not ogle you or try to get fresh. She's besotted with her fiancé and her six cats."

"Ten cats," Steve said. "Punkin had kittens," he explained.

"I'll have to send congratulations," Leslie said seriously, making Maria snort.

"What else do you have in your bag of tricks?" Maria asked.

Leslie unzipped an outside pocket and retrieved two notebooks, one pocket size and one school size, along with an assortment of pens and pencils.

"Did you have ballpoint pens?" Leslie asked, holding out a plain black ink pen and clicking it a couple of times to show how it worked.

"Ballpoint?" Steve mouthed.

Leslie demonstrated writing with it on a page in the small notebook, then handed both over.

Steve clicked the pen, studying it, and smiled. "A Biro," he identified it.

Leslie mouthed "Biro"?

"Monty talked the RAF boys out of a few of these. They worked much better in the field than fountain pens and they made darker marks than pencils," Steve said. "They didn't do this, though." He clicked the tip in and out a few times. "They had caps."

"I don't know the word Biro," Leslie admitted.

"The Brits use it sometimes," Maria said. "Must be an early brand name."

"The flyboys liked them because they didn't leak at high altitudes," Steve said. "We liked them because they didn't need to be refilled constantly."

He made an elegant swirling spiral on the paper, then turned his attention to the other writing instruments. Pencils were familiar. Felt tips were new, but easy enough to figure out. And they had caps.

"Make sure to keep them capped or the tip will dry out," Leslie warned. "You can use these to take notes of anything that is unfamiliar, then we can go over your quesitons at our leisure. OK?"

"Yes, ma'am," Steve said with a military snap that made Leslie chuckle.

"Leslie will be staying with you for a few days to help you get familiar with the 21st century. And to help you get steeled in with clothes and food and whatever you need," Maria said. Then to Leslie, she added, "May I speak to you for a moment?"

The women went into the kitchen area. Steve moved to the far side of the living room to give them privacy. He began making notes, trying out the pens.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Maria asked quietly. "I only called for a recommendation, not to recruit you."

Leslie chuckled. "I couldn't think of a better recommendation than myself," she said. "When it comes to the second half of the 20th century, I've been there, done that, and I even still have some of the T-shirts."

"It could be dangerous," Maria warned. "I would be a miracle if he didn't have PTSD."

"He's sad, not dangerous, Maria. I'll stay out of the super soldier's way if he has a nightmare, I promise. As for the rest, I get to go on a shopping spree with company money and spend time with a living legend, who happens to be the handsomest man I've ever seen. Trust me, it'll be fun."

Leslie saw Steve's head duck in embarrassment. She tsked at herself.

"I think we're forgetting about his enhanced senses," she told Maria. "Can you hear us, Steve?" she asked without raising her voice.

"Yes, ma'am. Sorry."

"Not your fault." Leslie waved away his apology. "Do you have any questions before Maria leaves?"

"Dozens," Steve confessed, showing a closely written page of notes in the small notebook. The first notes were written in different pens and pencils, but he'd settled on the ballpoint by the end.

"Pick one," Leslie said good-naturedly.

"What do undershirts have to do with anything?" Steve asked.

A/N: So, Leslie is the most Mary Sue character I've written. I've tossed myself in a couple of stories as a tourist (in Five-0) or a grocery shopper (in Team) but Leslie is mostly me. She's more assertive than I've ever been and more important, but what she knows is what I remember and any mistakes are my own mistakes from the passage of time. (At least she doesn't have superpowers.) What Steve knows is what I have to look up, like the history of ballpoints (Any Brits familiar with the term biros? My spellchecker knows it, but I'd never heard of it.) and how long ago T-shirts were called T-shirts (longer than I'd expected). I've read and enjoyed many "introduce Steve to the 21st century" stories, but they got me thinking, what kind of person would I pick to help him? I picked myself. And I needed a break from Winter Soldier torture. Don't worry; I have more Reconstruction stories in mind.