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It wasn’t that Steve had never used a toaster before. For heaven’s sake, they had toasters in the forties, my god. But, it was true, he’d never had one speak to him before.
“Please state your toasting preferences now.”
Steve tried to gently wedge his slice of bread into the machine, but the damn thing had closed itself up somehow.
“Please state your toasting preferences now. For instance, say something like, ‘I like it medium dark,’ or, ‘please make it crispy’.”
Steve gritted his teeth and tried to gently pry the slots open, but they wouldn’t yield to his blunt fingers.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. Please say a command.”
The voice was just close enough to a real human voice that Steve was almost fooled, but then a vowel or the start of a word would sound just wrong enough to send a horrible shiver down his spine and remind him that the voice was attached to a mindless machine and not human at all. He cast about for something to use to pry open the damn thing and make himself some damn toast. He became aware that his fist was clenched around his slice of bread and he unclenched it.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. Please state your toasting preferences now.”
At last he found a plastic fork and stuck it in the closed casing, wedging it open far enough to give his fingers purchase. But he soon found that if he let go to give room for the bread it simply swung closed again, and he couldn’t quite manage to use the fork to hold it open and drop the bread in and the damn thing was still talking in its damn creepy computer voice and he was a goddamn war hero, didn’t he deserve, if he deserved nothing else, the ability to make himself a goddamn piece of toast?
He picked up the toaster, yanked it out of the wall socket, strode out to his balcony and drop kicked the damn thing as hard as he could. Which was pretty damn hard. It hit the street with a satisfying crash, just barely missing a pedestrian. Steve stood on the balcony of his apartment that he paid for with money he’d earned in the war and felt the breeze on his face that was not all that fresh but it was still New York and anyway New York had never smelled fresh, and sighed.
And looked down at the pedestrian, who turned out to be Tony Stark.
Tony stared incredulously up at him for a long moment, and then turned his attention to the toaster. He bent down, picked it up, turned it over. Studied it closely.
“Aw, it’s Hammer tech,” he said dismissively, and threw it over his shoulder.