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Once upon a time there were three heroes who rather thought of themselves as bears; outcasts from human society because they simply didn't fit in. They met while battling to save the Earth and decided to move in together so they'd have someone to share breakfast with who wouldn't run screaming and call the police.
The biggest, I mean, really Biggest of them was generally green and liked to wear purple, which, ok, that's a bit clashy, but his friends weren't all that fashionable, so they never judged him for it. They called him 'Poppa Bear' and he did all the heavy lifting around the mansion.
The middlesized bear, who was really pretty darn big, too, liked to wear a flowing red cape, and let his hair grow long. So, while acknowledging it was a sexist role-assumption, they called him 'Momma Bear', and he did all the gardening (he was really good at a trick he had for making it rain).
The littlest bear honestly wasn't bear-sized at all, but once you start a theme, you have to go with it. So they called him 'Baby Bear' and he growled a lot, especially when one of them would pick him up and toss him around in the air, but really, he liked having friends, and he didn't have anyone else but them, so really, it was ok with him, fine, didn't bother him much and he hardly ever sulked. He was very clever, and very rich, and owned the mansion, so he did whatever he felt like doing, which was mainly messing about with machines when he wasn't flying around in the suit of armor he'd made when some really rotten people had put him in a cave and prodded him with sticks until he got fed up with that nonsense and broke all their stuff.
One morning, just as they were sitting down to coffee and Danish, one of Baby Bear's alarms went off and told them someone was attacking the city, again. Baby Bear grumbled, but hey, a bear's gotta do what a bear's gotta do. So they left everything and went off to show the bad guys how very important caffeine is to a hero's mood.
The three bears fought together, ignoring all the other heroes who'd popped up to join in the fun, and by the time they were done, Baby Bear was really cranky, he had some kind of deep psychological need for comfort food afterward, so they stopped off for shawarma. Their coffee was going to be cold by the time they got home, anyway.
They returned to the mansion, and Poppa Bear de-greened, Momma Bear took off his cape and hammer and hung them in the vestibule, and Baby Bear had his machines take off his armor so he could have a good stretch. Momma Bear looked at the floor and said, "HEY! I just mopped, who's been tracking mud all over the floor?"
Poppa and Baby Bear had wiped their feet. They always wipe their feet, because the last time they hadn't Momma had made it rain in the mansion, and no one wanted to go through that again. "Not me," Poppa Bear said. "Don't look at me," Baby Bear said. "Why don't we follow the footprints?"
So they did, and they wound up in the kitchen. "Someone touched my mug!" Poppa Bear said looking at the faint line of dried brown above the surface of his special blend South Indian chickory coffee. "And someone touched mine," Momma Bear exclaimed, looking at the mark of disturbance on his Norwegian egg coffee.
"I don't know what you're complaining about, my Frappuchino's completely gone, and my chair's broken!" Baby Bear was really peeved. "And whoever it was ate my blueberry Danish too!" Baby Bear looked at Poppa Bear's untouched prune Danish and Momma Bear's untouched lemon tofu Danish.
"And still hasn't wiped off their shoes!" Momma Bear said, pointing to a line of footprints going out of the kitchen by the other doorway. Baby Bear picked up a chair leg and resumed following the tracks, with the other two bears behind him. He was the littlest, but boy could he hold a grudge when you messed with his stuff, so they weren't going to get in the way.
"Huh," Baby Bear said, leaning over to poke at a muddy blue leather helmet lying on the floor. "Guy's got a big head."
Momma Bear picked up the helmet and tossed it into the laundry basket. "Look! The tracks go upstairs."
"Oh," Baby Bear said, pausing to look at a pair of dirty red leather gloves lying a few feet higher up on the stairs. "Guy's got big hands."
Momma Bear brought the basket and put the gloves in. He and Poppa Bear followed Baby Bear further back, so they wouldn't make the stairs creak and give them away.
"Yeah," Baby Bear said, halfway up the stairs and staring at a crumpled leather and armor red, white and blue ...jacket? shirt?... "Guy's got a big chest. Hmm..." He waved at the other two. "Maybe you'd better wait here." He tossed the shirt down into the laundry basket.
Poppa Bear looked at Momma Bear and shrugged. They sat down on the steps. A minute later a pair of muddy red boots thunked down onto the landing and blue leather trousers flew past them a few seconds later. Poppa Bear looked thoughtfully at the large trousers. "I think I'm going back downstairs and make more coffee."
Momma Bear looked at the trousers, too. "I think I'll join you."
***
Baby Bear stood in the doorway to his bedroom. He cleared his throat, and crossed his arms. He was still holding the chair leg, so it was a bit awkward. "Hey, you! What are you doing sleeping in my bed?"
"What?" A tousled dark-gold-blond head popped up from the tangle of Baby Bear's 100% Egyptian long-staple cotton sheets, and dazed blue eyes opened as the really big chest whose existence Baby Bear had deduced moved to a sitting position, sheets draped not quite demurely around proof that the trousers hadn't lied either. "Your bed? Oh, I'm sorry. I was tired, and got confused. I'm Captain America."
"Huh. I'm Ba... I'm Iron Man... well, I am when I'm in the suit, which, yeah, not at the moment..." Baby Bear put down the chair leg and noticed the red, white and blue shield leaning up against the bed. "I saw you, you were in the fight today."
"Yeah. The city's changed. I'd been sleeping for seventy years, or so. So I guess, I took a wrong turn somewhere." He smiled at Baby Bear.
"Sleeping." Baby Bear moved closer, sneakily, no one would ever notice, hardly anyone, he was as graceful as a ninja ballerina. "So, you got kissed by a princess and woke up?"
"God, no," Captain America winced. "I mean, I like women, I was even going to go on a date with one but really, not the sort of thing I want to wake up to."
Baby Bear grinned. "You are absolutely adorable, Goldijocks."
Captain America blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You drank my coffee, and you ate my Danish, and now you're lying in my bed." Baby Bear pointed at his own chest. "Is there anything else of mine you'd like to take?"
Captain America looked at him for a long moment, and then slowly smiled and opened his arms wide. "Yeah. Come here, Baby."
Baby Bear rolled his eyes at the name, but really, he didn't mind.