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Despite being out of the 20th century for a few years, Steve still has the tongue of the 40’s when he’s not at the office. The slang is for the most part comprehensible, but sometimes it’s hard to put together what he’s saying. Especially when he first joined the modern world, and it was the worst in a conversation wether he could help it or not.
“Hey, Stark,” Steve said one day, entering the lab where Tony and Bruce were working on something Steve didn’t entirely care about. It was a few mere weeks after the first initial attack on New York and Steve had been simply visiting the tower for a weekend for a project.
“What’s up, Dorito?” Tony replied, not looking up from his soldering job. Bruce sat, reading next to him on a see-through tablet that was similar to one on the helicarrier.
“I got some beef to share with you about bummin’ my shield,” Steve stopped at the table, arms crossed over his chest. This time Tony looked up at him, iron in hand.
“Excuse me?” He asked, looking between him and Bruce. Bruce shook his head, shrugging his shoulders.
“It doesn’t take a Spook to know you’ve been screwing with my shield.” Steve added, stance unwavering.
“Steve, what are you talking about?” Bruce asked calmly, only getting a short glance from the Captain before his solid gaze turned back to Tony.
“Shield. Mine. Stark. Taking. Testing.” Steve enunciated, putting his arms down to set his fists on the table in front of him. “Haven’t seen it since last night.”
Tony scoffed, tinning the tool in hand properly to set it in it’s holder. “Then why didn’t you just say so?”
“Did I not just say it twice?” Steve growled. “Stop being a wise guy and just give it back, would ya?”
Tony stood up, keeping eye contact with Steve until he turned around. He headed next to the farther table with what looked to be most of an Iron Man suit’s hand sitting as a work in progress. Bringing the shield over, Bruce studied Steve with a questioning look. He didn’t understand what he was saying any more than Tony.
“Get hip with the terms, grandpa.” Tony handed him the shield, staying standing. “Unless you’re trying to confuse us on purpose.
Steve took the shield and held it with persistence and ignoring the comments. “Wouldn’t kill ya to cook with gas for once and ask me next time.”
“Again already,” Tony sighed, lifting his hands up in defeat. “Catch up on the terms. The internet serves multiple purposes!”
Steve left the two in the silence of the lab, still shocked by the encounter they just had. “Didn’t know that speech was used to that capacity by him back then. He was always really formal in interviews.” Bruce commented, still staring at the door.
“Yeah, I doubt being flash-frozen helped all that much with the culture wipe.” Tony said, getting back to his work without thinking about it again.
After a while, Steve had managed to be able to keep the slang to a minimum if he was paying enough attention to what he was saying. If he was too tired to pay attention or just plain distracted, he’d slip back into it. The mornings where he still gets interrupted by someone in his half-asleep state could be argued to be the worst.
Steve would work his way down to the common level after being woken up for an impromptu mission or even an early morning meeting for something that Steve has never cared to learn what it’s for.
“Want coffee, Cap?” Clint asked, holding up the coffee pot.
Steve would grunt, but still reply with a “Loaded armored heifer, please.”
Clint blinked while Natasha added a confused look to the approaching man. “Sorry?”
“Milk and sugar, whatever.” Steve sighed, catching the shared confusion. He sat down next to Natasha at the kitchen island. “Morning, Cookie.”
“Hi Steve,” Nat smirked, watching him down the coffee Clint put in front of him. “What’s ‘Cookie’?”
He shook his head, keeping the mug close to his face. “Ain’t nothin’, doll. It’s a blivet thing to you all anyways. Just don’t sing to Clint, he’ll send me to the can for sayin’ somethin’ like that.”
“For saying what?” Bruce asked, walking into the kitchen looking more presentable than the three combined.
“Honestly I’m not sure, but I feel like he was flirting or some weird shit.” Clint said, getting out more mugs for the rest of the team joining them on the main level. “Old man language and all.”
“Crazy how the one we can understand less than the Swedish meatball is our leader.” Tony adds, walking in almost as presentable as Bruce did despite the visible signs that he hadn’t slept yet. Steve scoffed, setting down his mug.
“I ain’t no quarterback, ya juvies.” He muttered, laying his head down onto the marble countertop.
“I give up already. And it's what time? Oh yeah, 5 am. Good start to the day.” Tony sighed, going into expressive detail on some random topic that Steve for sure wasn’t paying attention to, but he’d be damn if he at least wasn’t physically present during a meeting. The work in the 21st century was at the crack of dawn and late at night and Steve didn’t get why superheroes were so afraid to work when the sun was out. After finishing another point in the topic that sounded like talk of another mission for later in the week he looked over to Steve who was mostly dead to the space filling with Tony's one-sided discussion. “Jarvis, do you understand him?”
“Of course I do, sir.” The AI responded from above them. “I have an extensive library of terms used in the 1930’s and 40’s that are used when the situations arise of Captain Rogers slipping back into using more of them.”
“Showoff,” Tony muttered before restarting about another part of the mission of the mission.
Steve still wasn’t listening but he could still tell that Tony was continuing to have problems with the slang. He more than the rest of them always did. It was most often that Tony would be the one who had an issue with it, whether if he gave an annoyed look, made an angered noise, or just mentioned the internet again.
“Let’s G-Men their asses.” Steve said once early on in his 21st century lifetime before that. They were just about to go after a second mission as a team excluding Thor. Natasha and Clint stared over at him, as he didn’t register their confusion. “Natasha, you make sure to dog ‘em. Barton, you flip your wig on arrows, they won’t expect it. Let’s go catch up to Tony. We can get the dope later.”
“What are you talking about, Cap?” Clint asked, flicking his bow to extend it fully. “You got a lotta slang going on.”
Steve looked up at him and an expectedly curious Natasha. “Can you blame a guy for not being up with the times? Can’t say I have as much experience in this century as you guys.”
“Well you’re surely not,” Natasha smiled empathetically. “You’ll get it sooner or later. No one else gets the terms yet, though.”
And it was expected that no one would get them aside from JARVIS whenever Tony would ask. It didn’t come until years later after Bucky was discovered to be alive, was able to be readjusted into the Avengers, and Steve was nearly out of practice with the slang himself. They were all sitting around during a lull of a week, most watching some game show Bucky always enjoyed.
"Hey Steve," Bucky asked during a commercial break. Steve was just picking up a magazine, but only set it in his lap.
"Yeah, Buck?" Steve turned to look at him instead of a life insurance commercial.
"I wanna make sure of somethin', but don't let it spook ya, okay?" He asked tentatively.
"Shoot," Steve's focus zeroed in more on Bucky, catching note of what exactly he just said.
“You ain’t better be rationed in this century with someone else, Steve.” Bucky once said, eyeing Natasha and Tony alike. Bruce smiled out of Tony's spite. “I know you’re still quite the cold dish but I’d feel really fuckin’ crummy to find out you got a line of Call-Girls and Guys waiting to dance with you finally. I know people are trading happy for swinging and you still make me both ways ‘gay’ means these days.”
The rest of the team looked to Steve, as he was only leveling Bucky’s gaze and seemingly ignoring the team’s presence from overstuffed chair to couch. He set down the the magazine in his hands and adding a lopsided smile to his face. “I ain’t no ducky shincracker and you know it. It’ll just hurt a lot more if I step on your toes now.”
"Oh no." Clint snuck out of the area of the kitchen island to get farther away from the situation. Tony threw his hands up in the air.
"You gotta be kidding me!" Tony shouted, ignoring the shared look Steve and Bucky were sharing with a small smile.
"Ease up, tin man. Didn't think this'd flip your wig so much." Bucky moved to let Steve sandwich between him and one of the sides of the chair Bucky was on, leaning into him. "Then again Stevie here's always been one to let people figure things out for themselves."
"Still, this." Tony stuck his hands out, gesturing to Steve wrapping his arm around Bucky. "I never heard anything close to this happening."
"Don't be such a fuddy-duddy." Steve looked over to him, smirking. "Don't think your dad didn't like fondue, Tony."
"Why does melted cheese matter?" Tony asked, watching Steve's expression turn to a smirk.
"It doesn't."