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It starts out as a joke.
Bruce is the person that starts it. After a period of mild panic at the thought of the Hulk being a role model for kids, he takes to the idea of Avengers merchandise quickly. Some of the items make their way to the residential areas of the tower in large boxes full of prototypes, but mostly everything is taken care of by a few members of Pepper’s Army of Minions. (Tony says it deserves the capital letters, and has every electronic device in the tower auto-correct if someone tries to type it without them. Pepper occasionally corrects him – “They aren’t minions, Tony” – but mostly rolls her eyes.) The Avengers tend to get advanced copies of action figures and smaller collectibles more than anything else. Clint develops the habit of using the three inch bow that comes with his tiny counterpart to shoot miniature arrows at anyone that comes near him while he’s eating, and Natasha is oddly enthralled with the giant Hulk hands she can wear over her own.
What they don’t see very much of is the Avengers themed clothing that has taken over New York City at ground level. Bruce can understand why Pepper would make the executive decision to keep the deluge of tees and hoodies to a minimum. Even just the official merchandise would fill one of the spacious guest rooms in the tower, and a good percentage of the clothing is made for children. There is no reason for those items to reach the Avengers.
But when Bruce sees the obnoxiously purple and green HULK SMASH zip-up when he’s walking back from his favorite tea shop, he can’t help himself. He immediately buys one in Tony’s size, and presents it to Tony as a “symbol of our friendship, Tony, we’re supposed to be science bros, remember?” He keeps a straight face long enough to convince Tony to wear the sweatshirt and let Bruce snap a photo. Then Bruce laughs until Tony rips the sweatshirt off and throws it at Bruce’s head.
The next day, Bruce realizes that he left the sweatshirt in Tony’s workshop, because Tony is wearing it when he emerges for coffee.
“It’s comfortable,” Tony says defensively, cradling his coffee mug close to his neon purple clad chest. The green sleeves engulf the mug when he raises it to drink. Bruce notices for the first time that the shirt has holes sewn into the end of each sleeve for Tony’s thumbs.
Clint yanks the hood down over Tony’s face as he shoves him away from the counter to get his own coffee fix.
The Hulk hoodie becomes a frequent sight in the tower, and the Avengers file it away in the back of their minds, in the same place as they keep Black-Widow-wears-pink-lounge-pants and Hawkeye-is-on-top-of-the-refrigerator-again and Captain-America-is-cooking-bacon-in-his-boxers. Until one day Tony decides that the lack of decent breakfast food in the kitchen is enough of an incentive to venture to the coffee shop in the tower lobby, but not enough incentive to put actual clothes on, and someone snaps a picture.
STARK LEAVING POTTS FOR AVENGERS TEAMMATE BANNER? asks one tabloid headline the following morning.
Bruce tries to apologize. Pepper just laughs, kisses Tony on the cheek, and buys a tight wicking t-shirt with Steve’s shield on the chest. She makes sure she runs outside instead of in the gym for a few days.
TROUBLE IN PARADISE? STARK CEO POTTS SLEEPING WITH CAPTAIN AMERICA, screams one gossip magazine.
They only come in women’s sizes, so Steve buys the largest Black Widow shirt he can find, and forces it to stretch across his chest. (It fits about as well as the rest of his t-shirts.) He complains openly about the lack of equal representation in their official merchandise. Not to be outdone, Clint takes to wearing a Black Widow sweatshirt every time he leaves the tower. It’s also made for a woman, but it fits Clint oddly well. He takes a pair of black sweatpants and has a shop print BLACK WIDOW in red letters down one leg.
LOVE TRIANGLE CAUSING TEAM CONFLICT, claims a popular celebrity website.
Natasha ignores both Steve and Clint and buys a dark red shirt that has Thor’s hammer outlined in yellow on the front.
WIDOW REJECTS CAPTAIN AMERICA, suggests more than one headline, the day after she is spotted wearing it. The picture of Natasha in her Thor shirt is printed side-by-side with pictures of Steve sporting his Black Widow gear. Clint pouts until Steve finds one website that focuses on the Hawkeye-Widow side of their apparent love triangle. Thor starts asking Bruce questions about Midgardian courting traditions, wanting to know if he should be looking for articles of clothing in his size with his lovely Jane’s likeness printed on them. He doesn’t think Natasha is interested in him, but has taken the tabloid fascination with their clothing as a sign that wearing the colors and symbols of your object of affection is common practice.
“Perhaps it would be better to adorn myself with a representation of her work, rather than her likeness?”
“I think she would probably appreciate that, Thor. Yes. Don’t buy a shirt with Dr. Foster’s face on it, please.”
Sales of astronomy themed clothes take a leap shortly thereafter. One major clothing line releases a Galaxy Collection with prints created from Hubble images.
It is at this point that Tony starts to feel left out, and buys six pieces of Iron Man themed clothing for every person that lives in the tower. He wears at least one piece of Iron Man merchandise himself, most days, as an example.
Steve and Bruce shrug and wear their new hoodies the next time they head to a farmer’s market, and the tabloids start suggesting once again that Tony is building a superhero harem. Natasha delights in wearing one teammate’s merchandise while appearing cozy with a different teammate in public. Clint puts together a bulletin board covered in clippings from gossip rags and print outs from scandal websites. Pepper continues to work out in her Captain America shirt, and orders her Army of Minions to work on a wider selection of Black Widow merchandise.
Eventually the fervor dies down. On a slow news day some gossip sites will chatter about how cute it is, that each member of the Avengers wears clothing celebrating their teammates.
Tony wears the HULK SMASH zip-up until it catches fire in a lab accident. If the other Avengers know that he makes JARVIS search for a replacement, they keep quiet about it.