Okay, so, if you should know anything about me, it’s that I have a tendency to take prompts and make them Unnecessarily Complicated. This either goes very well or very poorly with no in between. Case in point: crystallitanie’s “Natasha and Clint steal a lovely boat and just go on vacation” prompt has been haunting my WIP folder for a literal year at this point, I think? Maybe more?

Here’s my rough outlines:
during a mission in Italy, Natasha has a sudden, blinding revelation that, oh dear, she’s in love with Clint. This absolutely will not do, so she decides to steal the very nice boat they’ve used for their mission and sail away to Eat, Pray, Love her way around the Mediterranean for a week. The only problem is that, unbeknownst to her, Clint is also on the boat. By the time this fact becomes apparent, it’s too late and/or there’s no good reason she can come up with to get him OFF said boat. Thus, she is forced to cruise the Mediterranean with the very person she is trying very hard not to be attracted to.

The problem? I have literally no plot. Once they’re on the boat, I don’t know what happens besides (a) Clint is hot and (b) Natasha tries not to give in to temptation. Some ideas I’ve unsuccessfully attempted:

-They come across some variety of Bad Guy and end up racing to stop him, potentially involving some undercover work that requires Natasha to flirt with someone not-Clint and have Feelings about that
-This is Clint trying to show Natasha the best vacation ever because she’s never taken one and he’s very sweetly enthusiastic about this/unintentionally kidnaps her into vacation
-Natasha is fed up with this will-they won’t-they, Barton! FED UP! So by the end of this trip, god damn it, we WILL kiss!!! (this was going to be from Clint’s POV so ended up feeling a little predatory)
-Natasha makes a bet with Clint that their mission is going to go badly, and if she wins, they’re going on vacation and he’s taking the fall for it. She wins. (This was also Clint’s POV and had a cameo from Jake Peralta!)

Anyway, the whole mess of WIPs is in this folder. If you're so inclined, please save me from myself.

I can send you more pics of beautiful blue water in Greece or elsewhere? Otherwise, I got nothing. Except a willingness to harass you via social media!

There is no such thing as too many pictures of Greece :)

Maybe it can just be a vacation? It doesn't need a plot. they can relax and just being around him makes it worse. Seeing him relaxed and happy and slightly sun burnt. There's nothing to do, so he tries to teach her to fish. They go snorkeling but Clint always forgets that he has to stay near the surface and starts choking because he's tried to breathe water (Nat puts an end to the snorkeling after that - if Clint won't look after himself, she will). They read the trashy novels left in the main bedroom (there's only on bed!?) and in the evening Clint names constellations. The play Scrabble for euro cents; poker for chores. Tell elaborate versions of two truths and a lie where they're all lies/truths.

*gasp* Natasha fell in love before. Clint falls in love now.

YOU!!! Are brilliant!!! I might seriously use this...

Why yes, this ATTF is transparently me trying to get other people to finish my work for me... What makes you ask? :D

*bows* thank you thank you I'm here all week.

Though seriously, I am always up for spitballing ideas. :D

Listen, I have over two dozen WIPs. And ya know what? I don't think I have any that are solidly Clint/Nat.

Though I have a Clint/Nat/Laura one (that I recently at least managed to ditch/rewrite the outline for on the part that was sucking but can't seem to work through the rest of it) and I have a Natasha/Tony with a Nat/Clint/Bucky on the side (Plot, what plot? SMUT!) Everything else is weird other characters.

I'm pretty similar. Basically everything my brain comes up with now, independent of promptathons, is Clint/Nat/Bucky. :P

I think the Tony/Natasha one might be right up your alley, because the premise in my head is that Natasha isn't sexually committed to any person/people, but emotionally she's attached to Clint and Bucky. And they are attached to her both emotionally AND sexually (ie: they don't sleep around with anyone outside the three of them.)

And if I ever actually get the Tony/Nat part exactly to my liking, then there should be a Clint/Bucky/Nat follow-up.

Like, what kind of labels am I looking at for that? hahahasob.
Still, in my head it works like crazy.

*shrugs* Does it need a label? That can just be them.

And man, that DOES sound right up my street, for all that Nat/Tony does nothing for me. *grabby hands* Feel free to hit me up if you want a soundboard for idea/someone to complain too. :P

Polyamory as an umbrella?

I think that sounds really interesting and I'd love to read it!

What's the sticking point on the Clint/Nat/Laura one?

hello I have no suggestions or help (of course) but I am SO on board slash greatly look forward to reading this eventually!!

I have a fair amount of WIPs but I've only got about three I'm actively trying to finish. And those I mostly know where they're supposed to go, I just can't write it. Or they're in a particular style that's really hard to recapture.

*shrugs* Everything I write now is Clint/Nat/Bucky anyway. :P

THIS I APPROVE OF

I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT

yes, and Clint/Nat/Bucky is wonderful! <3

Hell yeah hell yeah hell yeah it is!

Also gonna dip my toe into straight up Clint/Bucky sometime soon I think. Because why not? :P

Well my latest attempt at Clint/Nat/Bucky is basically ALMOST!Clint/Bucky with Nat popping her head in every so often to go 'nice', sooo damn it boys ;)

You know I'm gonna drag you down with me. :P

Eh, I can ship it. I just have any WIPs of it :p

Oh hell. WIPs. SO MANY. And I have this terrible habit of writing things out of order. Like I have the next 3 installments in a demon!AU series (which I'm finally posting, ha) but they've taken this long because I'd finished the last one but not the ones that came before. And I have a really long musician!Clint, bodyguard!Nat fic happening where I've finished spin off stories but not the main event. BRAIN, WHY.

BUT I am systematically working my way through them...

HEY HEY

FIREFLY AU. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THAT???

Oh.

Oh yes.

That.

Soooo that wants to be a HUGE space opera. And also I kinda decided I want to race bend characters? Because the original MCU Avengers were even less diverse than Firefly, and I kinda want a Firefly character who's Chinese or Asian with Mandarin as their first language who swears in English to mirror the English speaking characters who swear in Chinese. Which... being white I am wary and careful of.

And did I mention it's kinda HUGE?

Excuses excuses.

But also yes I understand. Though I'm sad I'm unlikely to read about Companion Clint. :(

*shrugs* Could still happen one day. When I've sat down to rewatch Firefly and got some time.

Aww Companion Clint, he's one of the reasons this may still at some point in the distance future get returned to. Love him :)

honestly, the ability to write out of order is impressive! I can't even when I'm at my wit's end and want to write something else!

Also, hello, YES, musician/bodyguard au!!! Will it help if I/we poke?

I wish I could make my brain write one thing at a time until each one was finished. As it is I often don't go back to things because it's been too long, so I loose the feel of it or run out of steam. Meh.

Musician/bodyguard gets chipped away at every so often. I am open to pictures/interesting things on Avengers with musical instruments, anything on music in deaf culture or different experiences of music, and when I was struggling to write them on tour in the USA I can't remember if it was alphaflyer or franztastisch said 'well set it in Europe then!' so also details/impressions about cities they could tour in. (Annnd this is wju it's sloooow, too many things lol)

Also also I have the Clint owns a cafe and Nat is a restaurant/food critic AU for a prompt of yours that i'm still working on ;)

I have so many once i clear through my prompts though i feel i need to finish truth or dare. then start working on an early Clintasha fic that's been bugging me for ages where Clint buys the farm and its an absolute mess that the original farmer was just going to burn to the ground and start again. When Clint shows Natasha she admits that shes never had a house but she knows this mess will never be one and Clint sets out to prove her wrong. Basically, Clint gives Natasha a home, Natasha gives Clint a family (even if it is just two assassins and there handler).

Aaaaaaaah! GRABBY HANDS AT FARM FIC.

Aww thank you I hope to put it up by the end of the year

I LOVE that premise!

That farm fic sounds wonderful and necessary!! Can't wait to read it :)

Aww, Clint giving Nat a home in the physical and metaphorical sense at the same time, YES PLEASE.

Wow I'm coming in here soooo late sorry guys but I just saw this now!
TBH I have...so many wips and I keep being like, the worst ever tease who comes to kiss_me_cassie and is like "i have a new idea!!!!!" and then I never finish anything lol. But I'm working on an Endgame fix it fic and I'm gonna finish it if I die trying. On top of that I have a massive sprawling au I'll never finish where Clint, Nat, and Laura meet because they're all criminals and assassins and they fall in love while pulling a lot of cons and murdering a lot of people and I have an old school clintnat fic with a lot of mutual pining and also gym sex (that ones technically finished but I never typed it up it's in a notebook, someone encourage me to finish it)

YOU HAVE NEVER SHARED THE NOTEBOOK FICS EXISTENCE. I DEMAND YOU TYPE IT UP.

(I'm ok with you being a tease. :))

im so glad you are ok with me being a tease lol. You're the first person I run to to blab about a new idea. <3

TYPE IT UP TYPE IT UP the word needs more gym sex!!!

....i'm getting the vibe yall want the gym sex lol. Fix it fics come first but once those are done I'll work on it!

If there's one single thing we love here at b_c, it's gym sex ;) ESPECIALLY when paired with mutual pining, I mean, c'mon!

Mutual pining with BONUS Bobbi being there and wanting these two idiots to be happy but oh my god are they idiots .

Hell yeah we're here for gym sex. Who wouldn't be?

Fair lol

*raises hand* I mean, I'm here for gym sex but cons and murder also sounds VERY, VERY GOOD.

oh my god the criminal au is just....like does anyone else have a fic thats sprawling and unending and has no plot and you've written yourself into corners but you still can't quit ti???? because that's this fic.

Oh god yes, and you're all 'well I was enjoying myself at the time; what is this plot of which you speak?!' But I am happy to hear about your corners and in fact anything to do with this fic *settles in* :D

oh god, the biggest corner is literally that the whole plot hinges on Laura being like "nope don't deserve love can't do anything with these two" but they're criminals and con man and it doesn't really /work/ that she's keeping herself from touching these two pretty people who want her very badly. Also Natasha is REALLY into Laura so she and Clint starting to have a thing comes out of left field? I just might try to rewrite from the top again. (...that would be like the third attempt lol I altogether have probably 15k written and I hate alllllllllll of it)

Hmm, well I guess it depends on how you've written it so far, but if Laura thinks she doesn't deserve love that might be so much about herself that it doesn't matter who it is that she wants, or who wants her, because it'd be punishing herself that she'd have to get past?

As for Nat and Clint, depends how they view sexuality. Nat might find out Clint also fancies Laura and sharing fantasiws turns ateamy, or Clint fancies Nat and she hadn't really considered him that way before but she's revved up and why not? Or...

Yeah Laura has a lot of unresolved issues that she has to work through and some of them I feel not remotely qualified to write on so that's also a hang up.

Clint and Nat are very casual about sexuality lol. I think it might work if I have them both be friends with Laura and thats how they meet? That's the idea I'm currently playing with (and they def know the other has a thing for Laura and that makes it more fun!)