I actually loved this moment, because I didn’t see this as Steve being incompetent and completely unaware of what was going on. This, I felt, was Steve being extremely sassy. “It seems to run on some form of electricity,” he says, with a huff of a sigh and a smile. What he means is, “Of fucking course I don’t know what this shit means, I’ve never been exposed to this, are you serious right now” and that is not because he’s stupid or inept. Actually, Steve adapts very, very well and very quickly to new technology, evidenced in the Avengers with the ease and familiarity that he navigates his tablet with, but also in Captain America, where he takes everything Howard gives him (modified, highly advanced Hydra weapons) and uses them to full capacity.
It’s just that Steve’s never seen the inside of a control panel like this, so there’s no way in hell he’d know what to do with it, and he’s pointing that out to Tony with his dry sense of humor. And I think Tony gets it, because he doesn’t get angry or snark back at him; he returns with “Well, you’re not wrong” and a lopsided smile, which I read as his “duh, what was I thinking” moment.
I just have a lot of feelings about Steve and his sass and his dry sense of humor, and now I will crawl away to have feelings elsewhere.
J.K Rowling said that her inspiration for Hagrid came from when she was 19 in a pub in the west country and this terrifying looking guy came in with these other biker guys and the only thing he talked to J.K about was how his cabbages were getting on
