Darcy & Team
Darcy Lewis saved money for college by working mall retail jobs. Her first job was at Spencer’s, but that didn’t last long despite her ability to hold keep a straight face while discussing condoms. JC Penny’s came next, Payless after that, a cookie shop fallowed, and many others after those. Darcy didn’t really handle the bullshit of customer service well. But it was better then waiting tables, so she kept with it until she left high school.
The one place she didn’t work during those years of hell was build-a-bear workshop. She didn’t want to spoil how much she loved that store. I mean, you stuffed your own teddy bear with the perfect amount of fluff and then got to dress him up. It was awesome. She loved the place. And she has the collection of teddy bears and other animals to prove it. This love stays with her through out college and even into moving into Avengers Tower.
The first time Darcy got to watch the Avengers televised fight with Doombots was also the first time she got to witness Pepper Potts stress herself out over Iron Man. Darcy took note of the stressing and offered the older woman her hand to squeeze. Darcy immediately noted that she needed to find something else for Pepper to squeeze because the SI CEO had a damn hard grip. But she suffered through that fight in silence and just put ice on her hand later while contemplating the problem.
That night, laying in her bed encompassed by her excessive amount of pillows, blankets, and stuffed animals a solution hits her. The next day, after a quick look online, she goes to the mall and directly to build-a-bear. Two hours of careful stuffing, clothing selection, and other highly necessary bear-making activities, Darcy heads back to the tower with her prizes.
Darcy presents her accomplishment to the team a little after two that day. Seven different teddy bears (all with build-a-bear’s new beating heart insert) decked out to look like the avengers. Not everyone is enthused immediately over their mini-selves, but everyone grows attached to the bears pretty quickly in some form or another.
Thor immediately takes to his mini-bear figure. Proclaiming the likeness to be great and other Shakespearean synonyms for awesome. Jane thought it was cute to, with it’s little hammer. So Darcy counted that as a whim.
Clint was amused by his own bear with it’s mini-suction cup arrows. Two days later, Darcy was slightly regretting Clint’s bear. Because Clint took great amusement in putting it in the most unexpected places with strings set up to make the bow go off. (After the third time she got hit in the boob by the damn thing she was ready to toss it off the tower.)
Natasha wasn’t so much interested in her own bear as she was everyone else’s. Since it was frowned upon for her to kill her team mates when she was annoyed with them, she started taking her frustrations out on the bears. For instance, one day, when he was being particularly troll like, Steve found his bear-self strapped to a ceiling fan. Darcy was less then amused, but admitted it was better then strapping Steve to the ceiling fan.
Steve regarded the bears the same way he regarded action figures made in his likeness: with resigned indignation and amusement. (A few days after Darcy gave everyone the bears, she offered to take him to the shop. His Steve Bear soon had a Bucky Bear to match. And a Peggy Bunny too. Even if they did stay in the privacy of his room.)
Bruce was mildly amused by the Hulk bear. It was twice the size of the other bears, green, and only wearing purple shorts. When he commented on it, Darcy insisted that they were only purple to stand out against his fur. Then she presented him with a mini Bruce Bear dressed in full lab coat, dress shirt, and slacks. (After she left the room, he tugged the slacks on the Bruce bear down a bit to prove his theory, purple boxers too.)
Tony wasn’t immediately content with his bear, he complained about it loudly. He claimed it looked nothing like him due to the lack of facial hair and that his armor was far more sophisticated then what the cotton replica made it out to be. But the next day he went out and fought a squid-alien with electric powers and damaged his suit. When he was down in his lab fixing it, JARVIS pulled up a video from the tower’s security footage of Pepper clutching his mini-bear self to her chest as she watched him go down. He never complained about the bear again, he just had some better made armor commissioned to fit the bear from a doll maker.
All in all, Darcy calls the Bear Avengers a resounding success and excellent idea on her part.