It was half past ten in the evening when Steve finally got home from SHIELD headquarters, where he had worked on some new tactical training lessons for the team with Coulson's help. He made his way down into Tony's lab straightaway, highly suspecting that the genius would still be there, absorbed in his work, just like he had left him this morning.

To his surprise he found the lab empty.

"JARVIS? Where's Tony?" Steve asked, while he walked back upstairs, inwardly congratulating himself for not looking questionably at the ceiling any longer when he addressed the AI.

"Sir is currently in your bedroom. He fell asleep about two hours ago after a short outing earlier today," JARVIS told him promptly and Steve could have sworn that he could hear a trace of amusement in his voice. He wondered about that for a moment, but then decided that he had probably imagined it. He thanked JARVIS for the information and walked down the hallway to the bedroom he shared with his lover.

Once there, he opened the door silently and stepped inside. The room was dimly lit by the moon as the blinds hadn't been shut down. He spotted Tony easily, and grinned in fond exasperation when he noticed that his lover still had his shoes on, was lying fully clothed on the blanket and twisted in what seemed like a rather uncomfortable position with his legs dangling down one side of the bed, making it clear that he hadn't counted on falling asleep there. Steve didn't want to wake him, but he was sure that Tony would appreciate it in the morning, if he tried to get him a little more comfortable.

He walked over to the bed, trying to make as little noise as possible, and started to carefully take off Tony's shoes. Tony got a little restless during that, but thankfully didn't wake up. Gently, Steve put his legs up on the bed and then he reached for a second blanket which was pooled at the foot of the bed.

When he pulled it away however, he startled badly, when he registered something small and furry hurrying away across the bed and crawling under the blanket Tony was still sleeping on.

Steve repressed a shudder and tried to calm his wildly beating heart, thinking of mice (or even worse – rats) in their bed. Even though Steve had seen his fair share of those little creatures in his life, especially during his time in the army, he still didn't like them. Almost every night when they had their camp set up outside in the wilderness he had woken up with at least one of those furry beasts crawling around in his tent and in the process all over his body. He had come to expect it back then, but he would have never imagined finding a mouse or a rat inside this Tony's tower.

He really didn't want to lift that cover and capture it, but he also knew that he couldn't leave it there, crawling around in their bed. So he took a deep, calming breath, and then tugged at the blanket. Hard.

Since Tony had still been lying pretty close to the edge of the bed, he went tumbling out on the ground with a heavy thump, but Steve's attention was quickly drawn to the small animal, which was now running around in panicked circles on the bed. He still couldn't make out many details, it was too dark for that, but he knew that he needed to attack now, while the beast was disoriented.

"OW! What the fuck!" Tony groaned from the floor, while Steve mentally prepared himself for the strike.

His hands shot out a second later, picking the small, furry body up from the blankets and he must have squeezed it rather strongly, for it let out a shrill squeaking noise.

"Bubbles!"

Steve almost dropped the creature, when he heard Tony's distressed cry.

Bubbles?

Maybe Tony had hit his head when he fell down from the bed? He needed to see if his lover was alright, but what should he do with the captured beast? He couldn't just let it run free again…

"JARVIS, lights to eighty percent. Now!" Tony called out, while scrambling up to his feet, and Steve sighed in relief when the lights went on and he saw that Tony looked unharmed.

Unharmed, but upset and outraged like Steve had never seen him before.

"Tony, what's…"

"What the fuck are you doing? Let him go, you brute!" Tony yelled over him and hauled himself over the bed to claw at Steve's hands.

Steve blinked a few times, completely astonished by the happenings, but then he looked down at the animal he was still holding tightly in his fists.

It wasn't a rat. Or even a mouse.

It was a hamster.

"Let go!" Tony demanded again and Steve finally relinquished his hold on it.

Tony took it from him and cradled it softly against his chest, while talking urgently. "Hey, you alright there little guy? Nothing broken, is it? Please be okay. JARVIS, check Bubbles' vital signs. Is he alright? Steve didn't hurt him, did he?"

It took almost five minutes, and many reassurances from JARVIS that everything was fine with the hamster, for Tony to finally calm down. All the while Steve couldn't do anything else than to stand there, dumbfounded. It was only when Tony sat down on the bed, the hamster still protectively held against his chest, that Steve found his voice again.

"Tony? Uh, is that your hamster?"

Tony looked up at him, startled, as if he had forgotten about his presence. For a second Tony looked completely embarrassed, but then he straightened his spine and lifted his chin defiantly. "Yes, he's mine. And I would appreciate it, if you could refrain from attacking him in the future," he said haughtily.

The situation just kept getting weirder and weirder. Steve sighed and sat down beside his lover on the bed, noting how Tony quickly moved the hamster further away from him.

"I'm sorry, I won't attack him again, Tony," Steve promised, because it seemed wise to make that clear before asking some questions of his own.

Tony eyed him warily, but relaxed slightly. "You better not."

"I promise," Steve said, earnestly. His curiosity got the upper hand then and he added, "But when did you get it?"

"Him."

"What?"

"It's a him. Not an it," Tony explained, though he sounded a little offended again.

Steve hastened to remedy that. "Alright. When did you get him?"

A pause. Tony stroked the hamster gently across its back a few times, before answering, "I got him today."

Steve waited for Tony to elaborate on that statement, but nothing more was forthcoming. "Okay, so you got him today," Steve repeated, still confused. "But why?"

It was a reasonable question, he thought. Tony had always insisted on keeping the tower pet-free, even though Clint had once tried to smuggle a hawk inside his rooms and Thor had almost brought home a stray Golden Retriever one day after a mission.

"Do you remember when I told you about the three most important life ambitions I had when I was a kid?" Tony asked suddenly.

Surprised at the seemingly unrelated topic, Steve frowned a little, but nodded anyway. "You said that you wanted to go on stage and go to Rome. And become President of the United States," Steve recounted effortlessly. The wry undertone in his voice at the last part went ignored by Tony, who still wouldn't take his eyes of the small animal in his hands.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Tony mumbled distractedly. "But I, uh, actually I had four important life ambitions back then."

Steve raised an eyebrow in question, but realised that Tony couldn't see it, so he asked, "And what was the fourth one?"

"Getting a hamster," Tony answered, still petting it.

Him.

Steve took a moment then, to study his lover. Tony was sitting hunched in a protective position, his hands careful and tender in their ministrations, and a soft expression in his eyes that Steve knew was reserved for things he absolutely adored and loved. It was clear, that the hamster meant a lot to him. Steve resigned himself there and then to the fact that it would be the three of them from now on.

"He's rather cute," he said and stopped himself from adding, for a furry little beast that nearly gave me a heart attack.

Finally, Tony looked up at him and smiled. "He is, isn't he?" he asked and Steve was sure that he would determinedly deny the cooing undertone in his voice later on.

Steve only hummed in agreement, but then he remembered something else.

"How did you call him earlier?"

"Uh, I named him Bubbles," Tony answered, looking down at the hamster again in a poor attempt to cover up the blush that spread on his face.

Well, at least Bubbles hadn't turned out to be a rat.