As much as Thor loves the Avengers, he doesn’t always have time to drop in properly every time he’s on Midgard. He still likes to check in though, and is always excited to find out what his friends have been up to, thus the wonderful world of email!
It was Natasha who originally attempted to explain it to Thor, she gave it a valiant effort but after minimal progress in over an hour she left and handed him off to Bruce in favour of a warm cup of coffee somewhere far away from people and noisy well-meaning gods.
Bruce, though half asleep was happy to help and they were making steady progress when Thor seemed to completely lose whatever thread of sense he had managed to grab hold of and they had to start from the beginning again. Both parties decided it would be best if Thor tried with someone else less likely to turn into a green rage monster, though in hindsight maybe the Hulk’s simple terms would have made things easier.
Steve was just about as clueless as Thor, though he had recently grasped the concept of email and out of fear of making the captain question his own understanding Thor decided he was perhaps not the best option.
Clint was away on a mission, and who knew if he would have been much use anyway.
So Thor turned to Tony.
At first glance the literal tech genius and owner of a multi-billion-dollar tech company would have been the obvious choice, but Tony was almost over qualified for this simple task. He would no doubt get very excited over the prospect of explaining the concept of the internet yet again, though Thor actually knew what he was doing on that front, thank you very much.
In the end Thor walked out after twenty minutes of Tony’s enthusiastic jabbering, leaving the man talking to himself and attempting to sneak out the back door of his lab (Thor’s idea of sneaking was not incredibly discreet and involved knocking over the contents of a couple of tables on the way past but Tony was so engrossed he didn’t seem to notice anyway.)
Thor left the tower and decided that he could probably just figure it out himself, he was a god after all!
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A couple of years later and Thor has successfully sent quite a few emails (as well as checking in on his friends in person many times as well) and he’s beginning to think he’s quite got the hang of the whole thing when he drops into a library one day and everything is different.
Thor isn’t sure if this computer just has a different system or if maybe the whole thing has had some update but he’s not afraid to ask for help (he’s had to do it a few times already on these mini-missions of his) so he starts looking around for the nearest friendly face.
There’s a man at the table behind him hunched over in his chair, book clutched tightly in his hands, he wears a baggy jumper under a leather jacket. His face seems friendly enough and his face seems almost familiar but he can’t quite place from where (when you’ve been to hundreds of planets and met that many people this tends to happen a lot) and Thor decides he might as well ask.
“Excuse me?” He’s careful to lower his booming voice to a library appropriate level, though the man still jumps and someone somewhere shushes him.
“Um hi?” the man clears his throat “Are you okay?”
Thor gives him his best smile “I was just wondering if you knew about emails?”
“Sure. Yeah, I can try.” He comes over and bends slightly to look at the screen, “I think you just- oh no. Not that. Okay go back, and- Nope.” He shakes his head, fringe falling into his face slightly “Sorry. I’m not very good at this.”
Thor claps him heartily on the back, worrying slightly when the man flinches from his touch “Do not worry my friend, as you can tell I am not so accomplished at it myself. What’s your name?”
“James.” The man smiles and reaches out to shake his hand, Thor takes it and pumps it up and down a few times, only now realising the glove on the man - James' - other hand.
This is also when Thor realises that the god of thunder isn’t exactly supposed to be on Earth right now and since James doesn’t seem to have recognised him yet he should probably try some sort of disguise. “I’m Bob.” he shoots another winning grin at James.
James, for his part raises an eyebrow and gives him a disbelieving look as though he kno0ws Thor’s full of shit but he doesn’t question it.
“Okay, how about we take another look.” James peers back down at the screen and begins clicking away again.
Fifteen minutes later and they’ve managed it, Thor only has one thing left to do. “Would you like to take a picture with me, young friend?”
James hesitates and seems about to say no when another look crosses his face and he nods.
They pose for the camera, Thor smiling heartily with his arm round James’ shoulders and James smiling also, holding up a half-peace sign though his hand is slightly blurred with movement. The photo is hastily attached to the email, the librarian beginning to get somewhat annoyed with their antics, and sent off into the aether.
Thor waves goodbye to his new friend at the door then rounds the next corner into an abandoned alleyway and calls to Heimdall, a successful day out!
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Steve smiles when he sees Thor’s name in his inbox, they don’t get to see each other as much as they’d like but the god makes sure to keep the team updated and his emails are always fun.
He reads through the email learning of some new alien species and then reaches the end, “say hi to my friend James who helped me send this!” and there’s a photo below of Thor and another man, this isn’t unusual, Thor usually attaches a picture with his email and when he’s had some kind person helping him they are usually there smiling too.
Steve is just about to switch apps and text the team to let them know that Thor has been in touch when he actually looks at the picture and- holy shit that’s Bucky.
His face is different than the last Steve saw, he seems happy and he’s laughing, a stark contrast to the grim shadow-faced bucky he met, his hair cut shorter, but it’s him.
Steve flips to the phone app instead and calls Sam, not even waiting for him to say hello “Sam. I found him!”