harborshore | Six Degrees of Separation

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The Six Degrees Of Separation Meme:

Give me no less than two and no more than four characters from any of my fandoms, and I will write you up to six ficlets connecting them to each other somehow. (e.g.: 'Six Degrees Of Separation From Dean Winchester To Chloe Sullivan', 'Six Ways Susan Ivanova Doesn't Know She Knows John Matheson', or 'From Dana Scully To John Winchester In Six Steps Or Less'.) Obvious or not, your choice. Crossovers or not, your choice.

Fandoms: Avengers and related movies, DC Comics, XMFC, BTVS, Veronica Mars, The Hour, The Hollow Crown, Leverage, the Tortall books, Narnia, possibly others if you can think of something I've written in that isn't here (not bandom, though).

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From:

sinuous-curve.livejournal.com

Steve Rogers to Barabara Gordon! :D

From:

harborshore.livejournal.com

Six Degrees of Separation from Steve Rogers to Barbara Gordon (or actually one is enough)

1.

It goes like this: Steve doesn't really like to ask Tony for help with computers. Not because Tony makes fun of him, though he definitely does, but because he already relies on Tony and the other Avengers for nearly everything about his new life and sometimes it makes him feel bad. He's not used to relying on other people; he shouldn't need to.

So he decides to learn more. He finds a night class at a community college in Brooklyn and starts going, telling the others he's going running, because he's learned that none of them want to come along for that (and the only one who can keep up is Natasha, so perhaps he understands their reluctance.

Introduction to Computer Applications is actually quite interesting. He enjoys learning about the historical aspects of computers, and is resolved to read up on it some more later, using some of those research access accounts SHIELD set up for him. He has a packet of various resources about the 20th century in his apartment, with notes about their geographic locations, but many of the old archives are apparently online now, which seems much more practical even if SHIELD assumed he'd prefer paper-based information.

And then he signs up for the next class, which is Computer and Information Security. It's very useful. He's never going to be a systems engineer, he doesn't think, but he really likes learning about how things fit together, and he's getting a much better idea of what Tony can do (in that way where no one really understands the extent of what Tony can do) and what he can ask Clint and Natasha to accomplish in terms of hacking and taking down electronic defense systems.

Their professor is a redhead in a wheelchair, but she has callouses on her hands that look like she's used to fighting. Steve doesn't want to assume anything, but he wonders how someone in a wheelchair acquired those kinds of wounds.

2.

This is not Barbara's Gotham. It's called New York, here, and even if she recognizes streets and the overall atmosphere, it's not her city. She hates alternate dimensions, she really does. But at least computers work in the same way. Setting up an identity is the work of fifteen minutes, and an alert for suitable teaching jobs (she does need money, and she's hesitant to steal if she doesn't absolutely have to) lets her know that the Borough of Manhattan Community College needs someone to fill in for their Computer and Information Security professor for a couple of months. Which, it's not like she could find a more appropriate class to teach, could she? It's also suitably low-profile that they won't put her through any extensive security screening (not that her documents and history couldn't pass muster, but it's a nuisance).

She's always liked teaching. Seeing people's faces clear when they understand what she's saying, noticing just how much better people get when you explain things in a coherent manner. The class is easy enough that she can prepare for it and still spend most of her time researching ways to get back. She's starting to think approaching one of New York's so-called superheroes might be her best bet, even if she disapproves of the kind of public image they have on principle.

Then Steve Rogers turns up in her class. He's enrolled as a Michael Barnes, but it's not like Barbara hasn't figured out the identities of the Avengers and knows what they look like, including those that don't have a public identity, in case she needs to use them as an incentive to get the help she needs.

She likes Steve Rogers, though, fake name or not. He never once looks at her chair. He looks at her hands once, frowning a little. He's also the only one who seems to pick up on the fact that she spends a whole class teaching them about the theory of backdoors into systems and consequently how to break into them once they learn coding.

She's really not supposed to be doing that, but she got a little bored.

From:

harborshore.livejournal.com

Steve stays after class that time.

"Did you have a question about the homework?" she says, giving nothing away.

"I had a question about the class," he says.

"Go ahead," she says.

"You're teaching us how to break into systems."

"It's a little advanced for this level, I'm aware, but everyone seems to be handling the material just fine." Deflection is usually a good strategy.

"No," he says patiently,"I meant that you're supposed to teach us how to protect computer systems, not break into them."

A little bait, maybe. She wants to get out of here, and Steve Rogers might be her best opportunity. "I promise it'll be easier to build a defense if you know how people get in," she says, smiling faintly. "That's how it usually works, isn't it? Prevent your opponent from making their play by figuring it out before they have time to deploy their strategy?"

"I suppose that's a good point," he says.

He's not biting. "What about on your missions?" she says. "You do try to predict the actions of your opponent, do you not? To understand them?"

He flinches. "You know who I am."

"I do," she says. "I did my homework."

"Homework for who?" he says immediately, and he's looming over her now. She shifts her grip on the pencil she's holding, which happens to have a built-in mini-tazer that is much more effective than its size implies.

"Myself," she says. "I don't belong here, and I need to talk to someone who will help."

"What do you mean?" he says.

Barbara sighs. Explaining about other dimensions is even more tiresome than getting thrown into one.

3.

Thor helps. More accurately, Thor's fiance helps. Barbara is almost sorry to leave; Jane is someone she would like to get to know better.

Before she goes through the energy portal that Jane generated using energy from Mjolnir somehow, Steve bends down and kisses her cheek.

"Good luck," he says. "It's a pity you didn't get to finish teaching the class."

"I left you a tutorial," Barbara says, smiling back at him.