Work Text:
At the break of dawn, Steve pads into the kitchen, his step soft and purposeful so as not to wake the others. He approaches his long-time nemesis, the culinary bane of his existence for over ninety years: the toaster.
His friends will never believe him. They look at the shiny appliance and see an unassuming device, small and chrome, with a simple pneumatic shock absorber to ensure smooth operation as it crisps all matter of baked goods. But Steve knows the true purpose of this innovation in toasting technology: stealth. How else would the toaster turn out to be so ubiquitous, so popular, becoming one of the few pieces of technology from his day to stand the test of time?
As Steve understands it, the very first one was built from spare parts of the larger (and vastly more trustworthy) electric stove. It is a smaller, more compact version of the original design. Steve sometimes feels like that, built small and underpowered from the original human models. He supposes that mortal enemies are mirrors of each other, recognizing the part of themselves they want to destroy in the other. And so it is with him and the toaster for as long as he could remember.
His mother’s toaster had been frustrating. The ads had claimed it would deliver ‘Perfect toast every time – without watching, without turning, without burning,” and it was true. For his mom anyway. The first slice of bread she toasted on her way out the door to work always came out perfect, but any subsequent pieces Steve tried to make for himself had been burnt. Sure, people had claimed early versions of the device, such as the one the Rogers family had, lacked thermal regulation and would always burn every slice save the first, but the one time Bucky had stayed over for breakfast, his toast came out perfectly as well before Steve’s popped up black. It was then that Steve knew the appliance had a vendetta against him specifically.
He had been flung seventy years into the future, and yet the toaster still remains, as petty and annoying as ever.
He had tried bread, bagels, and even some frozen waffles. He had adjusted the settings for darkness and even tried to unplug and re-plug it (like he did with the modem on occasion), but whatever he put in the toaster came out either under- or over-done every time.
And so, here he was, with a bag of English muffins and Tony’s state-of-the-art toaster, ready to make peace and breakfast in one go. After all, the toaster is somewhat important to Tony’s healthy breakfast regimen, and whatever helps put food in Tony on a semi-reliable schedule is a friend of Steve’s.
He takes out the bread knife, carefully slicing the first English muffin, taking care to ensure even thickness throughout. He pops one side into the toaster, presses the setting indicating regular toast, and picks a middling darkness before sliding down the lever.
One minute five seconds later, it pops up, with the interior side toasted much darker than the side facing the external wall. It’s odd. Now that he is up early enough to make the first toasted slice of the day (which means the damnable device has no excuse), the toaster has decided to generate two different degrees of crispness on the same goddamn slice.
Steve frowns, grumbles. As a child of the Depression, he is not one to waste food. He pulls out the half-English muffin and chokes it down, dry and wholly unsatisfying. He then adds a second slice, dials down the darkness, and repeats, only to have the same thing happen again.
And again.
And again.
Perhaps in the seventy years during which he had slumbered, all kitchen appliances have attained sentience, and with it, the ability to remember and hold grudges for prolonged periods of time. They are called ‘smart’ appliances after all; maybe they are similar to J.A.R.V.I.S. in function if not magnitude of intelligence. Perhaps the toaster can be reasoned with, and so Steve promises it that if it would just work for him, he would feed it all the bread product it could eat. He’d get it the nice chrome polish and put it on the opposite countertop for more natural light and a better view.
He will do anything.
Anything at all.
The toaster is intractable. It cannot be reasoned with nor bribed into doing the right thing, the one thing it is designed to do: toast bread evenly. It’s in the name, for Chrissakes!
And so after the tenth slice, Steve is about to threaten the damn thing with dismemberment. Steve doesn’t need the toaster to make his morning meal. Eggs are a far superior breakfast food anyway, containing both protein and essential vitamins. What need has he of a fickle, incompetent–
“What are you doing?”
Duel to the death.
Steve looks over his shoulder to find Tony standing in the entryway.
“Would you believe… Breakfast?” he tries.
Tony cants his head, looking at Steve as if puzzling something out. “Why are you answering in the form of a question? Are you…” His eyes squint, and Steve knows he’s caught, but then: “Are you practicing for Jeopardy? Steve. Are you going to meet the man, the myth, the mustache himself?”
“…Maybe?”
Saved by Tony’s old-man crush. Again.
Tony walks up to the espresso machine and pulls down a mug for himself. “I’m glad all those calls weren’t for nothing, honey, but if you’re practicing for Jeopardy, your answer should have been ‘What is breakfast?’ It needs to be phrased like that to count.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Today, the enemy lives, but tomorrow…
Tomorrow, they will do battle on the field of honor, to answer once and for all the ultimate question since time immemorial–
“Steve… what happened to all the English muffins?”