Steve may not have shown it much, but he had anxiety. He was the leader of the Avengers which is a lot alone. And he put so much pressure on himself to make sure everything was going perfectly. Only Tony knew how to calm him down.
When his anxiety starts to rise he starts subtly shaking his leg up and down. Then he taps his fingers in a very distinct pattern.
One tap of his ring finger, then middle finger, then index finger. Two taps of his ring finger, then one of his middle finger, then one of his index finger, then his middle finger.
When this happens Tony touches his knee lightly and takes Steve's hand in his. He laces their fingers together and kisses Steve's knuckles softly. This helps Steve tremendously.
On one particularly bad day, the Avengers had fought some aliens and it did not go as planned. Usually, nothing goes this wrong, but today it had. Steve, of course, was freaking out.
As the Avengers made their way to the debriefing room Tony looked up at Steve, he could practically hear the blonde stressing and on the verge of an anxiety attack. He saw the fear in his lover's eyes. He took the taller man's hand and squeezed it reassuringly. Steve looked at him and gave him a small, sad smile. Tony leaned up and whispered, "you're gonna be ok. I promise. Just... breathe." He kissed Steve's cheek and let go of his hand as they entered the room.
"How did this even happen?!" Fury shouted.
"I don't know Director Fury, I'm very sorry," Steve replied honestly, leg shaking and fingers tapping.
Tony reached over and touched his leg, he took Steve's hand and kissed it softly.
"You 'don't know'? How can you 'not know'? Obviously, something went wrong here, Rogers, and I want to know what!" The director yelled.
"Breath, honey," Tony whispered in his husband's ear. He felt the blonde's leg shaking again so he rested his other hand on it gently.
"So Captain Rogers, do you have an explanation or are we going to be here for a while?"
"Director, I don't have an explanation," Steve stated calmly, "something just happened, and it didn't go as planned. But we defeated the aliens and very few people were injured. So overall I don't think it was a total fail," he finished off.
"Rogers, SIX buildings collapsed! That's more than any other mission!"
"I'm very sorry Director. But there's nothing we can do about it now, so I think we should just start the cleanup instead of using valuable time to argue about this." Although no one else heard it, Tony heard Steve's voice waver a bit. Everyone else had shocked expressions on their faces. Steve never talked back and this was out of character for him.
Even though he was their fearless leader, he was scared. Scared of getting yelled at, kicked off the team, even after Tony told him countless times that they needed him and Fury would never go so far as to kick him off the team.
"You're right." All the Avengers whipped their heads from wherever they were looking and gaped at Fury.
"I'm w-what?" The Captain practically whispered.
"You heard me. Now everyone get your asses up and start the cleanup process!" Fury barked.
"Yes Sir," everyone said as they got up out of their seats and out the door.
Only Tony and Steve remained. Tony leaned over and hugged the bigger man. "That was very brave," he smiled.
"He's gonna kick me off the team this time," Steve whimpered.
"Steve, Fury may be an ass but he certainly needs you and will never, ever kick you off the team," Tony said, "I don't think he would be able to even if he wanted, you're just too damn charming."
Steve chuckled, a faint blush covering his cheeks. "Thank you, Tony," he said seriously.
"For what?" The smaller man asked, confused. He hadn't done anything out of the ordinary recently that he knew of. Fighting aliens was normal for them, he didn't need a thanks.
"For helping me," Steve replied, looking a little embarrassed.
"With what?"
"You know..."
"No I really don't," Tony laughed a little.
"With my anxiety," the blushing blonde almost whispered.
"Honey, you help me all the time. This isn't anything special. We all have anxiety. We just get it about different things. I have anxiety because of stress and lack of sleep. You have anxiety when something isn't perfect or things don't go as planned. Nothing to be ashamed about either," The brunette explained.
Steve pecked him on the lips, "I love you."
"I love you too," Tony smiled at him, "now let's go help the others, I think they'll be a little mad if they think we're not coming," He extended his hand out to his husband.
With that, they both went outside to help out. Steve smiled thinking about how lucky he was to have Tony in his life.
