bakerstreet | The Domestic Meme

The Domestic Meme

RULES!
❧ Leave a comment with your character's name, fandom, and any preferences you have.
❧ When replying, RNG for a number between 1 and 15. The number corresponds to the scenario that you will play out in whatever way you want to.
❧ Go from there!

THE LIST!
01] baby
Suddenly, there's a new addition to your family! Are you expecting? Adopting? Struggling to find the perfect name for your child? Or maybe you're up at a ridiculous hour in the morning because they're crying like crazy.

02] just married
Congratulations! You and your loved (?) one are about to start a whole new life together! It's time for the honeymoon...

03] house hunting
Are you seeking out an apartment? A dream house? Or just any old place, as long as you're with your other? Make sure to weigh your options very carefully...

04] household chores
It's time to clean/cook/garden/take care of something! Do you work together, or does one of you hide until everything is done?

05] shopping
Whether it's for furniture, groceries, or something in between, shopping is something that everybody must do at some point in time! What varies is if they like it or not.

06] family vacation
WE'RE OFF TO DIDNEY WOOOOOOOOORL or wherever
... well, as long as the kids are happy, right...? You may not be happy (or maybe you are), but it's mainly about ~family bonding~.

07] romantic retreat
It's you and your loved one's anniversary, and you decide it's time to take some time off and take them somewhere nice, where you only have each other.

08] comfort
Is somebody sick in bed? Or perhaps they just had a bad day? Sometimes, a good breakfast in bed or a home-cooked meal can really lift the spirits! Or perhaps you want to try medicine, or laughter, or something else?

09] pet
Suddenly, you have another addition to the family! Is it a puppy? A kitty? A fierce dragon? Whatever it is, make sure to give it a name and to take good care of it!

10] holiday
Happy birthday/New Years/Christmas/Valentine's Day/whatever! It's a very special day that only comes once a year, so make it count!

11] argument
Oh, no, who left the stove on... Or maybe it's about why they were out late last night? Either way, there is a lot of tension today, and one of you may or may not be sleeping on the couch tonight.

12] making up
It's time to make amends for that fight/divorce/whatever you had before! After all, you love each other... right?

13] surprise, surprise
You are feeling rather loving tonight, so you want to remind the other person how much you cherish and appreciate them... if it's by something cute and adorable or hot and sexy is completely up to you.

14] proposal
~~SHUT UP THIS TOTALLY FITS~~ You've been with your other for what feels like forever, and finally you want to tie the knot with them. Will you go down on one knee before them, or get a little creative?

15] other
I know I'm forgetting like a bajillion and one different things here, so this is the option for that!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

((Up for another already?))

(( Always for you gurlfran ))

Clint isn't sure exactly why Natasha's idea of quiet time involved them driving down the country to ass knows where. What he does know is that his eyes are tired and strained from driving and Natasha is forcing him into the parking lot of a grocery store.

He hates food shopping, doesn't mind cooking it but buying it is a totally different story. He's out of his comfort zone, he gets lost looking for things and with his head pounding this is really a bad decision, but he purses lips and goes with it. "So what exactly do we need?" Yeah he needs a plan, like everything, an objective to divert his pain into completing.

Most of Natasha’s life was spent pretending to be someone she wasn’t. Growing up in the Red Room, then later with SHIELD, only in her downtime did she get chance to just be herself, and even then she kept so much of who she was hidden away from others.

Today she had a day off, but instead of winding down and just being Natasha, she has decided that there is something else she wants to be. Today she just wants to be normal; a normal woman, a normal couple, doing something normal and mundane. Of course she didn’t confess any of this to Clint, she just dragged him along for the ride.

“I have a list,” she replied, waving it in front of him only briefly before pulling it back and climbing out of the car before she could snatch the paper from her hand.

A list was a good starting point, or so he guessed since grocery shopping really wasn't his ball game but he'd make an effort and smile through it as always. The indifferent one.

He followed her out the car, carefully locked the doors on the expensive vehicle and stroked fingers lovingly over the bonet as he made his way to her side. "Want to tell me what's on the list?"

Curiousity would always get the better of him, and he half hoped there'd be the name of a decent bottle of wine or two as well as his favourite snacks. That was one thing he did like, adding tiny things to the list every now and then in hopes the shopper would just pick it up, not think twice and bring it back for him to steal away.

"Or did you bring me to carry the bags?"

Because of the way he posed the question, asking if she wanted to tell him instead of just asking what was on the list, Natasha couldn’t resist answering “No” and grinning at him. It was all part of her game, and although she was sure that Clint would realise quickly enough that she was playing a role, she didn’t point it out.

“I found a recipe I want to try,” was as much explanation as she offered. “Of course I brought you for your muscle, though I suppose if you want to add a few things to the card we can discuss it.”

He caught her grin, frowning softly, creating creases along his forehead which quickly smoothed out as he found his way to her side and slide the keys to the car into his pocket.

"This mysterious list better not contain bird seed." He'd be pissed if it did, Stark found it hilarious when Steve and Bruce came back from a shopping run with a huge sack of bird seed. Clint had wanted to put an arrow into the mans skull in return and refused to eat it, even when he'd shared a quiet moment with the man and a bottle of J.D.

"A recipe?" He curved an eyebrow slowly, reached to loop his arm through hers through the parking lot. "What kind of recipe?" And muscle? He took that as a joke, he wasn't sure there'd be any HYDRA agents smuggling cabbages out of the grocery store today.

"I'll carry your bags in exchange for a bag of Doritos. Fair trade."

Natasha laughed. “No, no bird seed, but I do need some bread crumbs,” she said with a teasing grin. Not completely teasing, that was on the list.

Leaning against him a bit when he took her arm, she was struck with a moment of melancholy but quickly brushed it off; she would deal with that later. “It’s a Russian recipe. And yes, your muscle. To carry all the bags... and to push the cart,” she added as they stepped into the store near the rows of trollies.

“Just a bag of Doritos? If I had known you worked for so little I would have always made use of your services.” Maybe not always. Sometimes she preferred to use this time and task as alone time.

"Hilarious." Even if they were on the list she just had to go and mention bread crumbs, so he managed a smile, a slight smile, okay an actual smile. That was Natasha all over, make a joke at his expense and still manage to make him smile though it. Anybody else and he'd start brooding.

He pulled her closer, feeling the subtle change in her emotions. Emotion they never spoke about, maybe they should have started being far more open about these things, but there was times and places to have those conversations, not here in a parking lot. "Oh? Exotic." He nodded at her words, he was useful in that capacity, he'd carry the bags, push the groceries while she picked and choosed different items and brands and he wouldn't complain.

In short he was a complete fool for her, but it suited him.

"Maybe, depends what catches my eye.." He smiled, unlinking arms to grab a trolley, ending up back by her side. "Lead on babe." She'd make him pay for that later, but if they were playing a happy couple just out shopping then in his mind it was worth the abuse. There was nothing terribly happy about their coupling, although he was completely content with being hers. Another unspoken bond.

Natasha knew of Clint’s pet peeve about being compared to a bird, and she always took great satisfaction in getting him to smile about it instead of just get annoyed. She rested her head on his shoulder for a few seconds before continuing their trek.

She pretended not to notice when he pulled her closer, not wanting to own up to any hidden motive behind any of this. Fortunately he didn’t ask; that wasn’t how they did things. Maybe some day that would change, maybe it should, but it seemed to daunting, terrifying; it was easier to just speak in touches and looks than actual words.

“Exotic?” she repeated, rolling her eyes. She hardly thought of her Russian heritage as ‘exotic’. The term always made her think of tropical locations with long, sandy beaches and blue, sparkling water as far as the eye could see.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, reluctantly letting him go and waiting while he grabbed a cart. The nickname earned him a dangerous glare. “Just try to keep up, sweetie,” she replied in the most sickeningly sweet tone she could muster.

"Exotic." He repeated the word, let every letter roll of his tongue. "Different from pizza and hamburgers anyway." Clint had become a cultured man, flying around the world from mission to mission. He liked to think he was cultured anyway.

He caught the glare and smiled slightly, yeah he was in trouble, probably big trouble considering the woman hated any terms of endearment, a habit Clint was trying to change about her. Although the tone of her voice was not a step in the right direction by any means.

"Oh I'll keep up, don't worry about that." When he was fully back at her side he managed to push the cart with one hand, his other arm had wound itself over her shoulders. "Alright so, where we heading first?"

Natasha looked over at him when he repeated the word slowly and in that tone that made her spine or her stomach or some part of her tingle that she couldn’t quite identify. Thankfully he quickly dropped it and she laughed lightly. “An interesting definition,” she said, but she certainly knew where he was coming from. Pizza and burgers were quick and easy, and pretty much everyone enjoyed them. Stepping out of that box required more effort.

When he wrapped his arm around her shoulder she leaned into him slightly, her own arm slipping around his waist. This was why she chose this spot when there were at least a dozen markets closer to where they lived they could have gone to instead. It was more remote, and chances of them running into anyone they knew were slim; nobody knew who they were so they could be whoever they wanted to be.

“Let’s start with the vegetables,” she said, surveying her list.

Clint was silently aware now of her motives behind them driving for so long away from everyone and everything they knew. This was a new environment, one they could relax and be together in, instead of putting up false pretenses or being too aware of the people around them. He smiled to himself, pulling her closer carefully as his gaze fell to the signs hanging along the ceiling, studying them carefully.

"Okay vegetables it is," Heading towards the marked aisle with that satisfied smirk on his face, "What kind of vegetables?" He was aiming to make himself more useful, of course in doing that he was able to let the trolley drift and lean down, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

When he kissed her suddenly, even though it was just on the forehead, Natasha looked at him with pure and utter affection, her expression momentarily completely unguarded. She loved being with him like this, getting this taste of normal when their lives were usually anything but. She never dwelled on the what ifs, there was no point, because if anything had changed, if any little thing had been different then they might not have ended up where they were now. Besides, why dwell on something she couldn’t change. They were what they were and somehow they had found each other, and that was all that mattered. Maybe they couldn’t always be this free, but that didn’t make their normal interactions any less significant, all that mattered was that they were together.

God, it was going to be hard to leave him tomorrow.

Drawing her eyes away from him, she glanced down at her list. “Eggplant, onion, tomatoes, garlic, and I guess the fresh parsley is probably around here somewhere,” she rattled off the ingredients.

The look on her face did something funny to him, something he couldn't describe with words. He loved her, he'd never told her because that was a step too far, but he hoped she got it. One of those unspoken things he hoped he'd dropped enough subtle hints over. He smiled, content and happy with the look on her face, in her eyes and when she tilted up to look at him he immediately lent down, dropping a kiss to her lips still with that easy smile on his face.

"Okay, onions and garlic? You realise that's the most lethal concoction ever right?" He gave her shoulder a soft squeeze, pulling himself away to grab at a pack of onions, throwing them into the cart.

The kiss was brief, but it was enough to leave a smile on Natasha’s face, as if he had somehow passed his on to her with that simple touch. It was enough to make the sudden loss of warmth as he moved away from her easier to bear.

“Perhaps,” she replied, taking a pen from her pocket and striking the items off her list as he added them to the cart. “But if everyone eats the same then surely we will all simply cancel each other out.”

Poking through the eggplants, she selected the best and largest ones she could find.

"True." He eyed the pen, eyebrow quivering and lips curling in laughter. Always prepared was Natasha, Clint was going to hedge all his bets that she had a gun, plus a couple of knives wedged into spaces in her clothing, the thought made him grin wider even though he was currently looking for tomatoes while she was sizing up eggplants.

"Is there a reason you're going all out? Is it somebodies birthday?" He called, prodding at the red fruits and finally picking a few that looked decent enough, carefully dropping them next to the discarded onions.

"Not that I'm complaining but usually you just reach for a take-out menu, not having us drive thirty miles out of town to go shopping." There had to have been another agenda he was missing, apart from the subtle-ness of her planning this so they could pretend to be something they weren't, something normal.

Natasha completely missed Clint’s amusement at her resourcefulness, though if he did happen to thoroughly search her certainly would have found a concealed weapon or two. Not that she needed weapons to be dangerous, she was a weapon, but a girl could never be too careful.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Natasha replied, keeping her tone even and her face expressionless. She added garlic to the cart. “I am getting tired of takeout and had the urge to cook.”

Looking around them, she began to wander off, looking for fresh parsley. “What did I say about keeping up?” she tossed back over her shoulder.

Giving her a pat down for concealed weapons was always a thought he held in close regard, just any excuse to skim his hands over her body and he'd take it, no questions raised.

He couldn't read her, never had been able to unless it was, like earlier, one of those rare moments when she let the barriers break and he got to see her true colours shine, a spectrum of god knows how many hues, all pleasing to the eye. "Alright, just don't set the fire alarms off again." Even though that really hadn't been entirely her fault, it was a memory that made him smirk all the same.

He watched her walk because he never grew tired of tracing her steps, only broke off his gaze at her words but more because there was two children now bouncing in his line of vision and had totally made him stop staring in awe and mutter something about how parents needed to be more observant.

Clint caught up to her, surveying the produce as they passed. "I'm looking forward to it, by the way, your home cooking."

Stopping in her search, Natasha threw a half-hearted glare back over her shoulder at him. “That was not my fault,” she claimed. “Maybe you should stay out of the kitchen this time.”

She didn’t mean it, of course; half the fun of this idea was roping Clint into helping her cook. Well, more than half. Most of the fun, really.

Finally locating the parsley, she added it to the cart and checked it off the list. Before she could give futher instructions, though, Clint managed to surprise her with his simple but meaningful statement. She smiled at him again. “You might want to wait until you try it.” She certainly wasn’t the best cook in the world, but she had to get points for trying. The side dish sounded easy enough, but the chicken dish would take a bit of finesse.

"If that's what the lady wants.." He trailed off, throwing her a lopsided smile. If she wanted to play this game Clint would bite. He'd be equally happy to sit and watch from the sidelines like always as she cooked. Then again picturing her as a domestic goddess wasn't a painting he ever expected to view.

He luaghed softly, re-arranging things inside the trolley into an order which didn't involve the tomatoes getting squashed. "If you let me in the kitchen I'll offer my assistance, although I will still believe that there is some secret plot behind this.." He was half wondering if it was someones birthday, it certainly wasn't his.

"Where to next Boss?"

He wasn’t supposed to agree to stay out of the kitchen, though at least with Clint he was clearly just playing. With many other men they would jump on the excuse not to help. “You mean you can’t figure out what the lady wants all on your own?”

He did offer to help after that, though making sure to restate his suspicions. Maybe she should just tell him now but she didn’t want to ruin the rest of the day. No, it was best to just wait until after dinner when she could get him alone. “I accept your offer of assistance,” Natasha replied formally. “That way you can watch to make sure that my secret plot doesn’t involve poisoning all of you.”

Looking down at the list, she motioned for him to follow her. “Chicken,” she read off the next item.

Oh please, Clint keeping out of the kitchen was like telling a bee to stay out of it's hive, not only would he ignore it but it was a place he belonged to some extent. He could loose himself in a troublesome recipe or not feel guilty when he had the munchies at stupid o'clock in the morning.

"Well I have a couple of ideas of what my lady wants, but none are appropriate and will probably get us thrown out of the store.." Ever the chance to be a teasing bastard but hey, she had walked straight into that one.

"You wouldn't poison me, who else is going to stitch you up after you go and get yourself stabbed or shot huh?" He would follow without her motioning him, even if he was suddenly distracted by a shelf full of chips, carefully grabbing a couple of bags and keeping them seperate from the other items in the cart. "Oh you're cooking chicken, maybe you will poison us all then." Of course he made that more of a joke by nudging her shoulder lightly as he caught up.

It was tempting to ask just what exactly he had in mind, but she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to tell her, and she knew exactly what his voice would sound like when he did so and it would only result in her dragging him off in search of a washroom or somewhere where he could follow through with every word. The point of today, though, was to be normal and not draw any attention to themselves, so Natasha didn’t ask, though that didn’t stop her from slipping her arm around his back, her hand sliding down into the back pocket of his jeans.

“Well, you have all day to think about it before we get to find out how right you are,” she said with a very suggestive grin, giving his ass a firm squeeze before moving away again.

“I am perfectly sufficient and stitching myself up,” she replied. “I suppose there are other reasons to keep you around. I might change my mind if you keep insulting my cooking, though.” She tried to play it serious, but she couldn’t quite keep the amusement out of her eyes, not with him. He always had that way of breaking down her walls and making it hard to pretend. Or maybe he just made it hard to even want to pretend, knowing that he cared about her and wanted her for who she truly was, not for one of the many masks she wore.

Normal was nice, but it was also the greatest lie they'd ever pretended was real. There was nothing normal about their lives, nothing normal about what they did or who they met. Clint couldn't even remember being normal, maybe he never truely was.

His trademark smirk curled his lips, feeling her hand in the back of his pants, giving her an innocent look as she spoke and laughing at the squeeze. "Less of that otherwise I'm finding us a solitary corner." Or maybe a washroom, did normal people want to drag their partners off to washrooms all the time when out doing mundane things? Probably not. Oh to be normal.

"Hey I never insulted your cooking, I did say I was looking forward to it." He almost pouted, but the smirk won out in the end and remained on his face as he finally tore eyes away from her and surveyed the chickens. "Okay chicken so you can give us all salmonella." Off course he was joking, especially considering he'd probably end up working with the meat.

Clint Barton / Hawkeye | MCU

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