In the beginning, it was indifference.
Steve was completely unlike what his father so passionately described to Tony as being, and the latter was so much like Howard Stark that it aggravated Steve to no end. It was a reminder of both their pasts that each man longed to forget, pasts that still burnt them like a hot iron.
It was indifference that led the heroes to detest each other, to find the needle in the haystack and attack with it. To find the smallest fault in each other's actions and start a fight because they were angry, so angry, and didn't know how to let previous matters go.
They didn't want to let previous matters go.
Their patience with each other was tested highly during the battle of New York, but they managed to pull through it. After that, and after Tony nearly died, Steve's attitude toward the man calmed down substantially. He didn't get as irritated with the hero as he once did. Tony, on the other hand, acted as though nothing had changed. He was the same Tony Stark that he was before - arrogant and argumentative.
But nightmares plagued the both of them. This was nothing new for Tony, who'd been getting them since he had been kidnapped and nearly killed by the Ten Rings - the terrorist group that wanted his weaponry. But Steve? This was something uncharted for him. His nightmares weren't even about himself - they were about Tony.
Countless times he watched helplessly, body paralyzed, as the Iron Man plummeted through the air. Down, down, down he went, until he smashed into the pavement and his entire body was broken. Each time the arc reactor, having been ejected from Tony's chest on impact, would roll towards Steve's stagnant feet, blinking almost teasingly until the light faded entirely.
Each time, the Captain woke up screaming.
There wasn't much he could do but sit there in the darkness, drenched in a cold sweat, and try to convince himself that it wasn't true, it didn't really happen, that it was only a dream and Tony Stark was just several floors below him, probably working on his suits or drinking himself into amnesia.
What he wanted to do when this happened was go down to the garage and see the male, make sure that he was okay. Steve was protective of his teammates like that, but it was different with Tony. He couldn't even describe these bizarre feelings for the iron hero, and it was just another thing that frustrated him.
But Steve was foreign to this new, ever-changing world of technology and new customs and a society that was not as conservative as it once was.
Would he ever completely understand anything?