It had been a month after Tony was admitted into the hospital and Iron Man was taken off the Avengers when Steve had the strange urge to go see Tony. Bruce, who Hill had assigned to take care of Tony, had told him that Tony woke up at random intervals. He was a complete mess when he did so, crying and struggling against his restraints. He's been sedated repeatedly.
Steve stood outside his door, watching the genius in his drug induced sleep. After a good ten minutes, he opened the door and entered the room. Tony was hooked up to all sorts of tubes, a breathing mask, and IVs. It pained him to see Tony like this. He's seen him in this position hundreds of times but he was normally was glued to his side, never leaving the chair besides Tony's.
But that's where he now sat once again, hoping that for once, Tony would wake up calmly so he could just know why. He didn't even care if Tony insulted him or yelled at him or whatever. He just wanted to know why the genius would cause all this. Why would he do this and not care?
And that's what Steve did for the next three weeks. During the day while Caroline went to daycare and Peter to school, he sat in one of the chairs (this time across the room, mind you.) and waited for Tony to wake up calm enough to talk.
And one day, he did.