He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he did it again. Tony wasn't being unkind, he was being honest. That's what they came here to do. They had to have this conversation. He just didn't like all the assumptions on Tony's part.
"How far would you go for Rhodes?" Steve asked rhetorically because he knew that Tony would go very, very far to save his best friend. That was the same thing for Steve. "I'll protect Bucky, you've got that right because I've got very little of my past. Peggy's dead. The Commandos are gone. The last person who knew Steve Rogers before he became the legend of Captain America is him and he doesn't even remember everything. I'm going to protect him. That doesn't mean we can't be friends. Unless you think I can only be friends with you?"
At the end of the day Steve's best friend was Bucky. He always would be even as a mental wreck like he was right now because he was all Steve had from who he was. Everyone owned his past. The Smithsonian, collectors across the country, historians and corporations. Captain America was a commodity. Steve just wanted something for himself of himself.