When I was your age

part of why bob does so many chores is also because he's just bored. there's not a whole lot to do in the tower and his anxiety makes it hard to leave for long on his own (i headcanon that the drugs he was using gave him a lot of confidence so once he's off them, he has a whole new learning curve of what his real baseline anxiety is and how to cope with that). he likes to read and do art and play games but he can only do so much at a time before he wants to stand up and do something. chores give him something to do and they make him feel useful. a win-win. plus he can listen to audiobooks while he does them which makes it way more fun.

bob usually picks up the chores that are the hardest to get wrong. he'll often do the dishes because 70% go in the dishwasher and the rest just need a scrub. he'll vacuum and sweep and mop the common areas. he does the general household laundry like blankets and hand towels. grocery shopping isn't really necessary because they get most things delivered but bob will often do that anyway because the little walk to the store is good for his agoraphobia and it makes him feel nice when he surprises the team with treats.

there are a few chores bob will not touch. he tried dusting exactly once but his tremors caused him to shatter a vase which triggered a panic attack because of trauma from his dad so now he won't dust anymore. he also tried to learn how to cook while the team was away but it turns out he only knows how to make struggle meals and one mocking comment from john made him give up learning. his ability to take out the trash/recycling also fluctuates because a combination of ocd and trauma from being unhoused has led to him dealing with hoarding that he's too embarrassed to talk to anyone about. cleaning out the fridge/pantry is pretty much impossible for him as someone who spent so much of his life living food insecure.

all that said, bob does struggle hard with depression and executive dysfunction. most of the time, he's able to go around completing his chores like usual. but there are times when he falls into a low and can't motivate himself to make his bed let alone clean the kitchen. during these times, he generally expects to be kicked out. for some reason the team chooses to support him instead. sometimes the guilt of not doing enough comes back in a manic episode where he will spend three days not sleeping doing literally everything.

moving on to the sentryagent fun! the two people on the team who actually like cooking are alexei and john. but alexei's cooking tends to be done 90% in the microwave so everyone prefers john's. sometimes when bob goes into the kitchen, he finds john cooking. he'll often sit down and just watch. bob convinces himself it's because he's trying to learn how to cook so he can meal prep for the team (and because he likes tasting john's food along the way). it takes him a while to admit to himself that he's learning nothing because he's too busy watching john's sexy biceps flex when he dabs the sweat off his forehead; too busy staring at his tongue when it darts out to taste a little sauce on a spoon.

on a similar topic, the gym suggestion? ohh yes. john goes to the training room to do some sets and bob follows him within a few minutes because he's suddenly remembered the mirrors need to be cleaned. please ignore it if he keeps stopping and staring at john in them while he's working. he also takes care of the sweaty towels while he's in there and may or may not hand john two or three just to keep brushing up against his sweaty arm. he always wipes down the equipment while john is in the locker room (even though john insists he can do it himself). if he's licked the bench once or twice while he's doing it well that's nobody's business but his kinky ass.

there are quite a few flowers around the tower that bob tries to care for while the team is away. what makes it hard is that some of them clearly need special treatment and nobody will take ownership of them to tell him what they are. bob has asked the entire team and they all insist they aren't theirs. he finds his answer when he wakes from a nightmare around five one morning and goes to get a drink. to his shock, there's john of all people, watering the flowers before his morning run. bob expects john to deny everything when he speaks up but john ends up rambling at him instead. he tells bob all about how from twelve to eighteen he spent his summers working in hoskins family flowers; how during the school year he'd spend hours studying in the back room with lemar. when bob asks, he shares every detail of what he does to care for the more exotic plants. they don't speak about it again afterward and bob never touches the flowers when john is home. but when he's away, bob takes that chore more seriously than any other.

of all the chores bob helps with, there is one that john has explicitly told him to stop doing. when people track in dirt, blood, etc., bob is not allowed to clean it up. in fact, everyone tries very hard to clean it up before he's able to see it. this is because john once walked in on bob trying to scrub dirty footprints off the floor. his hand was raw and tears were streaming down his face. john tried to ask what was wrong and take the sponge from him so they could talk but bob got even more distressed and insisted it needed to be clean. it took john a while to realize that bob was remembering the feeling of scrubbing his own blood off the floor as a child; of being beat senseless and then forced to wipe away the evidence so his father wouldn't get caught. even when everyone else goes straight to bed after a late mission, john always stops to mop the floors first.