Chapter Text
When he’d been very young, it had been a constant source of frustration to his mother that Steve could absolutely and completely overlook the obvious once he’d made up his mind about something. It wasn’t necessarily that he was stubborn, though he was; even when he’d weighed ninety pounds soaking wet he’d still be the first guy to dig in his heels about what he believed in, and good luck to anybody who tried to change his mind. It was just that he didn’t like to waste time, so if he thought he knew what was right or appropriate or useful he’d just stick to it. There was no sense in fixing something that wasn’t broken, after all, and when his methods yielded good results he kept on using them.
Of course, he knew how to adapt. He’d had to learn the hard way, because if you didn’t learn to get out of your own head and see the forest for the trees on the front lines you were probably going to get yourself killed. Worse, if you were in Steve’s position, you’d get the people who were depending on you killed. He couldn’t take credit for that entirely, though, because while he’d always been smart and resourceful and quick on his feet, the Super-Soldier Serum had gone a long way toward making him, well, brilliant.
Not that he was a genius like Tony or Bruce, but there was no sense in denying the fact that his intellect had been sharpened and honed just as surely as his physique had. His intelligence was all strategic, though, as it should be considering what he’d been intended for. It wasn’t arrogance to say that he could be parachuted into the middle of a battle and he’d be able to take a look around, take stock of the situation, and formulate the best battle strategy for the situation at hand. Pre-Serum he couldn’t have done that, of course, but now that was how his mind worked, for better or worse. More than that, because every battle situation was unique and the variables were constantly changing, he’d learned how to think on his feet and roll with the punches no matter who was throwing them.
One battle’s strategy could change ten times over its course, and that was fine, because Steve’s mind never stopped working. Without even thinking about it, he was constantly turning the strategy over in his head, pulling it apart and putting pieces back together, factoring in who was where and what their condition was, adjusting for new enemies and differing terrain, making calls and still holding his own at the same time. What would have been impossible for Sarah’s mulish little boy was constantly processing in the background for Captain America, and while that didn’t make him a genius by any stretch of the imagination, it made him an effective leader and it forced him to broaden his mind and his way of thinking.
He’d always been the sort of man who took things in stride, though. As the smallest guy on the block, he’d always had one of two options: he could duck his head and mosey along without bothering anybody, or he could ball up his fists and stand his ground until somebody knocked him off it. Most guys would only need to be licked a handful of times before they decided it wasn’t worth the trouble, but Steve had never really been like most guys. Bucky’d told him more than once that he was six feet seven inches packed into a bread box, which had been true enough but had still irritated him, but then Bucky was the only genuine friend Steve had ever really had.
See, he’d had this habit of mouthing off to anybody and everybody who acted like a fat-head, and Bucky had been the only fat-head who’d taken it well and liked Steve in spite of himself. Bucky had also been the first guy to not knock Steve into the pavement for calling him on his bad behavior, and they’d been so mutually impressed with one another that there’d been no other option but to become best friends. Maybe they’d never quite perfectly understood each other, but Bucky had been the only one to just roll his eyes and rib Steve good-naturedly about all the ass whoopings he got, and Steve had been the only one who treated Bucky like what was between his ears was as important as what was between his legs, so they’d learned to look past the parts of one another they didn’t understand.
Bucky never could quite wrap his head around the fact that Steve never, ever walked away from a fight, though. Because the thing was, Steve didn’t actually have a short temper. He was a calm, steady, reliable sort of guy, and even when he was being hauled out into an alley by his collar, he still kept his cool. He threw his punches, he took more, and he kept on getting to his feet with a stubborn set to his (usually bruised) jaw and his (aching) hands curled tight into fists, but he never really flipped his lid.
He got angry. Of course he got angry, but there was a difference between the slow-burning simmer of his temper, the hard ball in the base of his gut that pinched and ate away at his insides, and the heat and explosion that most people thought of when they thought of anger. Both could be equally potent, but you got a lot more done with the first one, and Steve had always been all about getting the job done with the least amount of fuss possible.
It was part of what made him such a good leader. He got things done, and when it came to tactics and strategy, he kept his head as far out of it as he could. He trusted his team to do what they needed to do, and he watched their backs, just like they watched each other’s backs. He was more than confident in his ability to think on the spot, flexibly, on the battlefield.
In his personal life, though, he was still much the same as he had ever been, and he hadn’t even realized that until he’d been slapped in the face with it.
Of course, there wasn’t anything inherently wrong with who Steve was as a person. His personality and values had been the reason why he’d been chosen for Operation Rebirth, because you could make anyone’s body perfect and their mind brilliant but there wasn’t a serum in the world that would make someone a good person. Not one that he’d heard of, anyhow, and he’d been around the block a time or two.
Or, you know, two hundred. (Being an Avenger was busy business.)
So the fact was, Steve focused on being adaptable and open the possibilities on the battlefield, because it was literally a matter of life and death. He kept an open mind and tried to work with personalities rather than around them on his team, because otherwise there was no way he would ever be able to juggle the massive personalities and egos that came along with heroism. But when it came to his personal life? To Steve Rogers, all-American man who still someday wanted to go back to school for art maybe and was attracted to strong women and didn’t take anybody’s bullshit? Well, there hadn’t ever really been a reason to reconsider any of those things. He wasn’t hurting anybody, and he was living as fulfilled and happy a life as he could manage, so it went back to one of his original rules: don’t fix something that’s not broken.
Sometimes, though, it wasn’t so much a case of fixing something as it was just not noticing when something was changing. (Steve had always been surprisingly slow on the uptake when it came to personal revelations, which was a constant source of frustration to him. Tactics, strategy, managing volatile groups of people? He was apparently great at it. Interpersonal relationships that became more personal than professional? Mayday. Back-up requested. Scratch that, abort mission, regroup, new strategy required.)
Back in his day, it would have taken Bucky pulling him aside, drilling a finger into his ribs and gleefully getting him up to speed on whatever he’d missed. He would’ve acted like he minded, but when it came to dames there was no doubt that Bucky knew far more than he did, and he’d been grateful for any insights into the female mind he could get. And Bucky’s advice had come in handy, even if it’d ended up useful about seventy years after it had been given, but who was really keeping track? The thing was, he didn’t have Bucky within easy talking distance anymore. There wasn’t really anyone who talked to him as Steve Rogers first and Captain America second, so he missed a lot of subtleties and just kept sailing along as he always had.
Until, of course, he discovered the first fan page devoted to Captain America x Iron Man.
A mug of cocoa halfway to his lips, he scrolled about halfway down the page before he stilled completely, one eyebrow steadily rising to his hairline, as he beheld a very passionately rendered CGI portrait of himself and Tony Stark, lips locked, hands all over each other in an apparently post-battle euphoric celebration.
He blinked a couple of times, squinted, and cocked his head at it. Then he looked for a signature, because it was really well done, and out of (potentially morbid) curiosity, he kept scrolling down the page.
Eventually, he just set his cocoa aside and cupped his chin in his hand, eyebrows near-permanently fused to his hairline as he read his and Tony’s “'ship manifesto.”