Personally, I don’t favour portrayals where Alfred is portrayed as this naive kid just being thrust onto the global stage in the wake of WW2, and then being forced to just react and react to Ivan. Alfred has always been ambitious, ruthless and brilliant beneath that easy-going smile- and at other times, the veneer of obfuscating stupidity. He’s the boy who wants to be king, after all- (a magnificent empire of liberty, from sea to shining sea).
Alfred and Ivan, beneath their seemingly diametrically opposing personalities, have the same extremely destructive tendencies and are very much addicted to power. Alfred dresses this up as the handsome and warm boy-next-door, he’s Captain America and Clark Kent rolled in one- all that power that should be terrifying supposedly rooted in a strong moral compass, that he’ll do the simple, right thing. Outwardly, Ivan is colder, harder, more Natasha Romanoff and the Winter Soldier than Steve Rogers- how can he not be? He’s lived so much longer, seen so much more. He’s cynical and shrewd, calculated and pragmatic in manipulating how the others fear him to his own advantage. But underneath that is the same wild, primal, destructive tendency as Alfred- the thrill at meeting his equal, the thought of taking him apart, to figure out what makes him tick-at the thought of ultimately besting him, no matter if everything else burns.