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It was like he had regressed. Natasha was almost certain she had seen Steve with a smartphone before, yet here he was taking a selfie in the most humiliating way possible.
“It has a front facing camera,” she said.
Steve frowned at her from his position: bent half over the kitchen counter, his hands awkwardly angling his phone over a mirror. “Front facing?”
“On the side that faces you,” she tried again. She moved closer to flip his phone right side up. She pointed at the top of his device, where a tiny camera hid expertly among the black. “You can flip between the cameras.”
Steve glared at the screen. “No,” he decided. “There is no way they could fit two in there.”
Natasha stifled the urge to laugh. “Really,” she insisted. She lightly tapped the camera icon and the screen’s focus instantly switched from the mirror to a visibly astonished Steve and Natasha. She watched as Steve performed an impressive imitation of a pufferfish in shock. He tapped the small icon repeatedly, his smile growing bigger each time.
He let out a sigh as he turned away from her. Staring directly at a security camera, likely too embarrassed to look at her, he asked, “Do you think you could show me some other tricks?”
-
“I'm pretty sure that’s illegal,” Bruce said as he adjusted the light on their workspace.
Underneath the table, Tony tossed a wrench aside. “I've checked. There’s no law against it yet.”
“Tony, the fact that you felt compelled to use the word ‘yet’ should tell—”
A distant scream echoed into the room. Several smaller noises followed, peppered heavily with expletives.
“JARVIS?” Tony prompted, already heading to the door.
“It seems that Mr. Rogers has had an incident in the kitchen, sir.”
An incident was an understatement. Looking as if he had massacred a village of Smurfs, Steve struggled to remain upright as he swatted uselessly at the blender. The entire kitchen was splattered in blue.
“It’s possessed!” Steve cried as he shielded himself with a pot lid. The blender growled in retaliation.
“It needs a lid,” Tony replied. Bruce unplugged the cord as Stark collapsed into laughter. Possessed, he mouthed, unable to breathe.
“A lid,” Steve repeated.
--
Steve was honestly surprised how long it lasted.
He almost blew his cover marveling at the wonder of elevators. Honestly, the first elevator was invented in 236 BC. He knew he was laying it on thick then, but Clint kept a straight face. Steve was so determined to break him he almost deployed his ultimate weapon: a dramatic breakdown over technology and the inevitable enslavement of humanity by robot overlords. He knew that would have to be his final prank.
His final prank was pretty mundane, in hindsight. He didn't have to try very hard as he progressed. Tony’s initial enjoyment of Steve’s apparent allergy to technology quickly faded into annoyance. “There is no possible way you could be impressed by a toilet,” he had fumed.
“I was very poor, Tony,” Steve replied.
All he had to do to get a reaction out of Stark was press a wrong button. He had a montage of small tricks: Tony catching him poking a wall as if the entire house was touch responsive, looking for computer chips in his shoes after discovering step counters, questioning JARVIS on the finer details of the toaster.
He couldn’t have done any of this without JARVIS. The best partner in crime, JARVIS alerted Steve to the arrival of his marks, filmed all the footage and edited it as well. JARVIS could have posted the pranks to YouTube as well, but Steve liked adding last minute captions and hashtags.
It ended too soon.
Steve browsed his twitter feed as Pepper and Tony watched the evening news.
“How technologically inept are your grandparents?” A perky young anchor asked. “The world’s favorite elderly avenger is not as confused as you think,” a photo of Steve in uniform appeared next to her, “in a hilarious series of YouTube videos, the senior avenger tempts fate as he wonders how long he can keep his fellow superheroes in the dark.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“I'm going to kill you, Rogers!”