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Of couse Clint would choose this time to wander into the kitchen, because he has the uncanny ability to choose the worst moments possible to walk into a room.

"Well, something smells..." and that was where he trailed off. To say that something smelled good would be a complete and utter lie, which she would see through and probably answer with bodily harm. To say that something smelled bad would be asking for a death sentence, full stop. Simply stating that something smelled was both accurate and as safe as he could get.

Natasha had a ready made weapon in hand. At least you could say that much for the kitchen, it never lacked the 'when push came to shove' material. In this case, it was a whisk, but Natasha was sure she could do some pretty nasty damage if she needed to.

"Not a word, Barton." Her partner knew what she would allow people to make fun of, and what she wouldn't. Clint even got a little more leeway than most, because he could sometimes make her smile when she didn't want to, a pretty rare talent.

"These are going to be killer cupcakes." But even she didn't really believe that. The smell had turned bitter in the air. It signaled another batched burned beyond saving. Natasha sighed and was tempted to throw her whisk at something. "I didn't mean that literally."

The funny thing, if she had attempted to make poisoned cupcakes, more than likely they would have turned out well.

Clint held up his hands in a surrendering gesture and kept his mouth shut... for now. She was brandishing that whisk rather threateningly, and while he had a bit of doubt that it could effectively be used to kill someone, he knew for sure that Natasha could certainly cause a whole hell of a lot of pain with it trying. He was rather partial to his life, and even more partial to being pain free while living it.

Still, he barely concealed a laugh at her choice of words, the sound coming out more like a snort. Covering his mouth with one hand he coughed in an attempt to hide it.

“I’m sure they will be,” he replied with the most innocent look he could muster. “They’ll probably do some major damage if you lob them at someone’s head.”

Okay, so he couldn’t help himself, but at least he had the sense to then duck behind the counter before she could whisk him to death.

A swift twang sounded out from the whisk hitting the counter top and bouncing in Clint's general direction. Natasha made a sound that was in part a growl, and in part some kind of frustrated curse.

"...you didn't happen to bring anything back from a bakery, did you?" She hoped in vain. Not even Barton could have predicted her well enough to guess that she attempted to cook while he was out. Domestic and Natasha were barely on speaking terms.

"Or tell me that we have a new mission. Something" But no. Fury would have called her in, had that been the case.

Clint laughed as he avoided the whisk and was tempted to keep pushing but he knew when to quit when he was... well, not ahead but still unharmed. She was practically pleading for a reason to quit without actually admitting failure, and while he wanted to give her one for his own sake he just didn’t have one to give.

“Sorry, sweetheart, but it looks like all the world’s villains have taken the night off,” he said, just his eyes peering up over the counter at her. It probably wasn’t good for his health to goad her with pet names either, but he liked to throw them out every once in a while to see how she reacted.

Whisk in hand, he decided it was safe enough to stand up and moved around the island to the sink to wash off the offending utensil. While he dried it he took a look at the recipe. It didn’t look all that hard. He knew she wouldn’t ask for help, and he could never gauge how she would react if he offered it, but if he just started measuring things...

Natasha split her look between the disappointing cupcakes and Clint, for his little verbal slip. It didn't escape her attention that he seemed to think he could suddenly take liberties with her name, now that they were sleeping together. For some reason that she hadn't settled on, she'd yet to actually correct him on that assumption.

"Yeah, I guess local authorities do have to handle the work occasionally."

She chiseled the burnt batch of cupcakes into the trashcan and frowned at it for another moment. The downside to frequently sharing your displeasure with inanimate objects was their tendency to have perfected ignoring it.

"...you think you can make that work?" She was curious. Natasha knew that Clint was fairly well adapted to taking care of himself, though she didn't know if that really extended into the art of cooking. Every partnership had it's little mysteries, after all.

It did seem more often than not that the local authorities were useless beyond anything small scale, but then being agents of SHIELD it was hard to not be biased. Besides, what they deemed as “small scale” was probably a whole lot different than what the NYPD believed it to be.

Just as expected Natasha caught him looking at the recipe, and as hoped she took it as an opening. Of course she didn’t flat out ask him for help, and while it was tempting to claim it didn’t look too hard, or to just reply with a definite affirmative, Clint gave it a ponderous look for a moment.

“It’s worth a shot,” he replied, as noncommittal a response as he could offer. “Can you find me a clean bowl?” There was no way of knowing what she had already mixed up in what she had been working on, and while it was feasible she was just cooking them too long and burning them all, Clint didn’t want to take the chance.

"I should make you find your own damn bowl." But, if she did that, she couldn't later claim to have helped make them. Natasha did reach for another bowl from one of the upper cupboards, her weighed leaned against the counter briefly and a small stripe of flower imprinted against her shirt.

She set the bowl in front of Clint. "Alright, what next." The used dishes were discarded into the sink and left to pile for the moment.

Natasha approached this with the seriousness of a mission, which in some ways, it was. She hadn't told Clint that Maria had baked a cake for Coulson's birthday. He would probably just laugh if he knew her reasons for doing this.

Clint chuckled at her empty threat. “You could, but then this whole thing is just gonna take even more time,” he said. He had no idea how long she had been here already, but he had the feeling that she would go for anything at this point that made this whole fiasco end quicker.

Quickly taking stock of all the ingredients littered about the counter, he concluded that they were all there, though he did question why both the baking soda and the baking powder were present when the recipe only called for the soda. Of course he didn’t question this aloud.

“Measuring cups and spoons, and a separate bowl for the dry ingredients,” he instructed, quite impressed that she was willing to take direction from him so easily. Peeling the wrapper off a square of margarine he dropped it in the bowl. “Do we have one of those electric mixers? That would make this a lot easier.”

"We had one." Which is the exact same tone that Natasha has used to describe the people that conveniently disappear after they've gotten on her bad side. The sad, limp cord of said machine could be found hanging from the trash bin. A horror of mangled metal pieces inside. If Clint really cared to look.

The rest of the supplies weren't difficult to arrange.

"I should get you an apron." For no reason other than whim. Natasha thought that might cross the line into unreasonable cute for them, however.

Clint raised an eyebrow at Natasha’s ‘explanation’ but said nothing. He did not want to end up facing the same fate as the poor mixer, may it rest in peace... or pieces, more accurately.

Starting with the eggs, he showed off a little (albeit not entirely consciously) by cracking them and dropping them into the bowl all one handed. Growing up in a circus had been a great way to learn many useless skills.

“Unless the apron says ‘kiss the cook’ and you feel like obliging then I think I can do without,” he said, smirking to himself but never looking her way, pretending to be focused completely on his task.

Edited 2012-07-22 21:13 (UTC)

Because he didn't look at her, she smiled just a little. The idea mentally filed away for the next gift giving occasion that they happened to be around for.

Natasha sensed that her part in making the cupcakes was over, or at least held in reserve. So she leaned back, elbows on the counter, not concerned a whit for the dusty mess she made of her arms and shirt. Clean up would come after the success or failure of the mission. Cupcakes were no exception.

"These come out right and I just might find myself in an 'obliging' mood."

Clint cast a sideways glance in Natasha’s direction as he slowly added the dry ingredients to the wet. He should just keep his mouth shut, but some days he just couldn’t help himself.

“In that case, maybe you should just stand over there,” he nodded his head to the other side of the room, far away from the stove, before quickly turning and holding the bowl up between them as a shield so she couldn’t physically retaliate without risking the batter.

“Though if you still wanna help, finding some of those muffin papers somewhere could greatly affect the final outcome.”

It was good he levied the batter as a hostage, otherwise he would have gotten a swift kick in the shin for his comment. What Clint gets instead, is an unspoken promise and a pointed finger to remind him that this isn't over.

"...muffin papers." Natasha isn't altogether sure that there are any of those in the kitchen. Weren't they just things that professionals had? Still, it does no harm to look.

"If you were Coulson, and you were putting away some muffin papers, where would you put them?"

And yes, she does have Phil help her with grocery shopping on occasion. She wouldn't bake cupcakes for just anyone.

“Don’t ask me,” Clint replied, carefully setting the bowl back on the counter. “That man is efficient in everything. Me? I don’t do shopping. Last time I tried I got stuck in the cereal aisle for twenty minutes, picked four different boxes and they were all wrong.”

Giving the batter one last stir, he randomly opened a cupboard to at least appear to be helping her look. “If I had to make a guess, though, I figure he’d put them with all the baking supplies, or the tins.” He motioned to the things that were already littered around the kitchen. “Where did you find all this stuff?”

Natasha waved a hand to indicate the general area of some cupboards. She searched through the drawers of utensils and random unidentifiable objects. "Wait, here, I found some."

The prize is set out and opened. "Do you just want me to put them in?" They were decorated with little stars and triangles. Which was even more appropriate for Phil, if you thought about it.

After a moment of searching Natasha came up with just what they needed. Straightening back up, Clint nodded, figuring she couldn’t really screw up much by putting the papers in the tin. Besides, it would let her feel like she’d actually helped with something. “Yeah, sounds good.”

Retrieving the bowl of batter, Clint gave it another stir before taking the spoon out and running one finger along the end until he had gathered a nice glob of batter. “Verdict?” he asked, holding his hand out to her, battered finger held upward.

When it involved cooking, Natasha would take the small accomplishments as they came.

She leaned over and sucked the batter off of Clint's finger with one long, slow tug, her teeth scrapping just the slightest bit along his skin. "Mmmm. It's good." It was better than hers already, but she wouldn't admit that easily.

With a spoon, Natasha figured that dolling out the goop was something else relatively difficult to do incorrectly. Officially, she had helped. Officially, Maria Hill could just eat a whisk. That thought put a smile to Natasha's face.

Clint watched intently as she sucked the batter from his finger about as slow and seductively as batter had ever been licked since its creation. Well, that hadn’t been the best idea, had it? Then she turned away and he just stood there dumbly for a moment, his hand still held up before letting out the breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding and swallowing hard.

“Don’t, uh, don’t fill the whole thing, just about three quarters full,” he instructed after a moment of recovery, sliding the bowl over to Natasha. While she went to work filling the pan, he wiped out the bowl that had held the dry ingredients and started gathering a few things around again. What were cupcakes without frosting?

That was another reason to feel smug, really.

So much so that Natasha forgot herself for a moment and began to hum something as she doled out the batter, careful to measure very precisely three fourths of each section in the pan. She pushed back with her palm, some of the rebellious hair that had escaped her loose bun.

This was nice.

Not that she'd say that in so many words.

Once he had all the ingredients gathered, before he started measuring Clint made the mistake of looking over at Natasha. There she was, the infamous and deadly Black Widow, carefully pouring batter into muffin tins and humming softly to herself, with flour all over her front and her violently red hair disheveled. She was the picture of domesticity, a thought that should have been oh so wrong, but she just looked so beautiful and peaceful for once that Clint actually forgot to breathe. I moment later he realised he was just standing there, staring at her, and quickly shook himself, covering by moving to check the oven to make sure it was set properly.

It took a lot of willpower to resist the urge to wrap his arms round her from behind but this wasn’t their private space, anyone could walk in, so he had to behave.

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said, opening the oven door so she could place the tins inside. Taking one last glance at the recipe, he snatched up the egg timer and set it for a few minutes less than required, just in case the oven ran hot.