Chapter Text
“STEVE ROGERS!” Tony hollered at the top of his lungs, utterly exasperated with the Avengers’ normally infallible team captain.
“Yes, Tony?” Steve looked up from his state of the art StarkPad with an innocent, beguiling expression on his face.
“Steve. I don’t get it, are you trying to kill me? God, please tell me you are because I can’t take this torture anymore. Dad said that all of you got enhanced, including your brain so how is it possible for, I can’t be— JARVIS, call a Code Spangles and send the rest of the team down to the lab. Even I can’t handle this on my own anymore,” Tony somehow managed to splutter out in his agonized, frenzied state.
While Tony was distracted, however, he seemed to have missed the mischievous glint in Steve’s normally clear blue eyes and the ever so slight upturn of his lips.
______
“Are you kidding me, Stark?” Bucky grumbled with a sour expression. “I was in the middle of training with Nat when your dumb ass called us in. This better be important because I nearly had her pinned.”
“In your wildest dreams, Barnes,” Natasha rebutted airily, although she winced minutely as she fluidly sat down on one of Tony’s lab stools.
“I saw that wince, милый.”
“What wince? Did you see a wince, Clint?”
“Aw, hell no guys, don’t involve me in your weird foreplay,” Clint groaned, clutching his pot of black coffee like it was his firstborn.
Steve laughed silently as Bucky moved to deck Clint with a well-aimed punch to the head. To no one’s surprise, the pair started bickering like children, trying to smack each other but defend themselves—or in Clint’s case, defend his coffee pot—while the rest of the team looked on amusedly.
“Yeah Tony, what’s a Code Spangles? I’ve never heard of that one before,” Bruce inquired.
“Never mind the damn code name, did you all know that our resident Capsicle here is the most technologically inept person I’ve ever known in my entire life? I’d understand if you were a little slow on the uptake, but my god Steve, you’re single-handedly destroying my will to live. I am a billionaire industrialist, child prodigy, and chairman of a multinational tech conglomerate and you make me want to weep and possibly—” Tony rambled on without showing any signs of stopping.
“Okay, slow down there Tiger, what did Steve do this time?” Clint interrupted.
“HE CAN’T FIGURE OUT HOW TO USE GOOGLE SEARCH OR THE ENTER KEY.” Tony tugged at his dark hair in a crazed manner.
The rest of the team seemed to groan in unison. Steven Grant Rogers: renowned superhero, master tactician, and Captain America, yet somehow painfully unable to figure out how to turn the TV on or use a toaster.
Tony had been tasked, against his will, with familiarizing Steve with all the technology that the 21st century had to offer. In truth, the team ganged up on him since he liked to brag about the superiority of Stark technology and unanimously decided that the logical conclusion was that Tony was the “most qualified” to help. Naively hopeful, Tony thought that it couldn't be too impossible of a task but was quickly proven wrong when Steve demonstrated clear and utter hopelessness.
Except, only Natasha knew better. Not much got past her sharp, calculating gaze and she would swear on her favourite thigh holster that Steve was less clueless than he was letting on. What she couldn’t put her finger on, however, was his reason for pretending like he was. Still, Natasha was impressed with his acting skills, which seem to have improved drastically since the DC Apple Store fiasco.
“Did he snap the enter key off again? Because that’s what he did when I tried helping him last week,” Clint muttered.
“No Birdbrain, you should see him try to search something. No matter what I say, he calls Google ma’am and types a detailed paragraph every time he needs to look something up,” Tony groaned, dragging his hand down his face. “He asked me if he could Google the location of the blue shirt he lost when he did laundry yesterday.”
“Jesus. Remember when I tried to teach him how to use the microwave to make popcorn for movie night and he blew it up? Actually, wait, that’s happened 4 times already.”
“FOUR times? JARVIS why did you only tell me about the first two times it happened?”
“I thought it would be more conductive to your physical and mental well being if I spared you the gory details, sir,” JARVIS quipped back with his customary dry wit.
Tony sighed again. And then he remembered why he called the team down in the first place.
“Right, so I clearly can’t deal with this problem on my own, no matter how much all of you want me to. Executive decision made by me, you all have to chip in and help the old man get used to the 21st century. No complaints, since I feed, clothe, and arm all of you. My tower, my rules!”
“I’m sitting right here, you know,” Steve said plaintively.
“We know. You’re kind of hard to miss nowadays, punk,” Bucky responded in kind, making Natasha smirk and turn towards Steve with one eyebrow slightly raised. She would have to corner him later to get to the bottom of this.
“It’s not my fault that everything is just so gosh-darned complicated nowadays. In the 40’s we didn’t have any new fangled metal devices that warmed our bread up, we just ate it cold. Nobody had computers or tablets, either. We wrote everything by hand or sent things by telegram, the good old fashioned way. The problem with 2016 is that there are unnecessary bells and whistles added on to everything. How do you even use Netflix to chill?” Steve passionately dissented with increasingly dramatic hand gestures.
“Okay, Cap, I’m going to stop you right there before you put me into cardiac arrest. So, as I was saying, before Mr. America here so rudely interrupted me, everyone has to teach Steve something about technology or the 21st century once a week. Meeting adjourned!” Tony said cheerfully, fingers tapping with dexterity at his holographic keyboard to establish a schedule.
Nobody but Natasha noticed the gleeful expression on Steve’s face before he quickly turned to exit the lab.
______
Steve could barely choke back his laughter as he left and headed towards the elevators. Sure, he had been a little lost with technology and the modern world in the beginning but he was adaptable and very eager to learn. In fact, he had easily caught up to almost everything he needed to since waking up from the ice. It didn't take him long to warm up to the idea of the Internet and social media. He thought that it was annoying at times but he also saw the benefits. The YouTube channel, however, was a spur of the moment type of thing. He was trying to create a Google account when JARVIS had helpfully explained what YouTube was for. If Steve was being completely honest, out of everything he’d encountered so far, JARVIS was the most shocking. Modern household appliances and GPS navigation he could get used to, but they really didn’t have a precedent for omnipresent artificial intelligence watching over their homes in the 40’s.
“Captain Rogers, we have arrived on your floor,” JARVIS reminded him politely.
“Oh, thank you JARVIS. And thank you again for not telling Tony anything about what we’re doing.”
“Of course, sir. I at times also wish to put Sir in his place. For his own good, of course, ” said JARVIS with a hint of playfulness.
Steve swore up and down that JARVIS was completely capable of taking over the entire world overnight without anyone even finding out until it had already happened.
“Thank you Captain, I shall take that as a compliment.”
“Sorry JARVIS, I did mean it as one,” Steve said with an embarrassed smile, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly for saying something out loud that he didn’t mean to.
So without the help of JARVIS, none of this would have been possible, really. Steve had never found a use for YouTube beyond its plethora of music videos that Sam had forced him to watch or the occasional viral video— and okay, full disclosure, he was slightly obsessed with cute puppy videos.
It was only after the thousandth time that Tony poked fun at him about his apparent ineptitude that JARVIS had quietly suggested the idea of pretending to be increasingly unskilled in navigating the 21st century and filming the team's frustrations to upload for the public's enjoyment. Steve had brightened up considerably and immediately jumped on the idea.
And now here they were. Steve and JARVIS: partners in crime. He couldn't believe the golden opportunity he had been given today. A schedule! Now he could easily upload a video a day. Honestly, the hardest part of it all was keeping a straight face every time he had to purposely blow something up or watch a teammate go over the edge with aggravation. He swears that Natasha sees through his act but she has yet to say anything about it. Hopefully, no one else suspects anything about his grand prank other than Bucky, who knows him much too well for lying to him to even be a viable possibility.
Steve, while rummaging around in the kitchen, peeked at Tony's schedule to find out who his next victim was and saw that Clint was on his itinerary tomorrow after training. He picked up a plum and bit into it, chewing thoughtfully. His subscribers would surely love that, wouldn't they? Clint always got him a lot of views but he found that Tony, without fail, would invariably get him the most. He would have to masterfully plan his attack for tomorrow in order to get Clint back for his sass today. Steve grinned with anticipation as he finished off his snack. Clint wouldn’t know what hit him.