She had gone along with the ferris wheel, the cotton candy, a ride consisting of spinning strawberries you were supposed to ride in, the stupid merry go round, had eaten no less then five deep fried foods, Natasha had even let Clint drag her into the tunnel of freaking love.

Ok, that one might have actually been kind of fun, or at the very least not as bad as Natasha thought it would be. But this was totally different, no way in hell was Barton getting her on this Roller Coaster.

He was holding his cotton candy in one hand, a roll of unused ride tickets in the other, he looked like a kid whose mom wasn't letting him do the one thing in the world he wanted to do. "Taaassssh, come on, it'll be fun! I've never been on a roller coaster with you, this will be awesome! We can scream our heads for fun for once! Come on, we're at a boardwalk, this is the HIGHLIGHT of the boardwalk. We have to ride it!"

Natasha glanced warily at the rattly wooden roller coaster towering over them, and flinched as a cart whooshed by, so fast it seemed about to rip itself from the track, and send it's screaming passengers flying. The entire thing looked like a death trap, and Natasha wanted to avoid it at all costs.

"It's probably not even safe Barton, do you see that it's made of WOOD? Wood and rusty old bolts, this thing is probably going to fall apart any minute. I'd really rather not die today." Maybe the archer thought she was joking, he waved her worry away with a flick of his hand. "Don't be so dramatic Nat, this thing is over 30 years old, it's totally safe! I've been on coasters like this a million times growing up, and look I'm just fine!"

She rolled her eyes at this. "Oh, that explains a lot… I'm guessing the shaking of the coasters are what rattled your brain out of place, it's all making sense to me now." He snorted, and whipped a fluffy whisp of cotton candy at her, it floated to the ground before it even made it halfway to her. Seconds after it hit the ground, an obnoxious seagull was swopping in and scarfing down the candy. Natasha focused on that, and tried not to flinch as another cart of screaming passengers streamed by on the coaster track. The rational part of her brain knew they were screaming from excitement, the thrill of the steep drop, they were probably all having a great time. But in Natasha's head it was hard to hear screams and not think of torture, pain, and things that were pretty much the opposite of a great time.

Still, Clint did really want to do this….Ugh, and now he was making puppy dog eyes at her and clasping his hands together pleadingly. "Nat? Come on, won't you ride it with me? Look, there isn't even a long line for it! We can just walk right on, it will be fun!"

Well, seriously, how bad could it be right? After all, it was just a roller coaster. That's all. These things were inspected, and tested, there was a very good chance no one had ever died on this one. Honestly, what was the worst that could happen? She would be uncomfortable for a minute or two, and then it would be over. Then at least she could finally say she'd ridden a coaster, at least once in her life. She just had to face her fears, and get this over in the end it was a stupid roller coaster, and she was the Black Widow. She'd faced far worse challenges than this and would probably deal with things much worse than a freaking boardwalk ride again sooner than later. This was nothing, once she got on it she'd stop being scared of it.

This is what Natasha told herself when she grimly told Clint she would ride the damn roller coaster, if it meant so much to him. But as he jumped with excitement, going on and on about how fun this was going to be, another screaming cartload of passengers went whizzing by and their screams only made the pit in Natasha's stomach grow.

She shouldn't be scared of a roller coaster, not after the stuff she'd been through in her life.

Maybe that's why she couldn't admit that she was.

The butterflies swarmed in her stomach, and Clint joked about how puny this coaster was, how safe compared to the ones he helped set up during his carnie days. Even as they swiftly moved through the line, getting closer and closer to the end of it, Natasha just couldn't give in and tell Clint she didn't want to do this. Couldn't admit that maybe she actually was scared of this stupid ride.

Her heart was pounding rapidly in her chest as they reached the end of the line, and the next train of rickety rusted carts rolled in on the track. Clint was grinning like a little kid, and eagerly asked the bored looking teenager running the ride if he and Natasha could sit in the front car. The teen shrugged, and the archer took that as a yes. Suddenly he was holding her hand, and Natasha was being dragged to the front cart of the roller coaster.

It was really too small for both of them, panicking, Natasha wondered if they were making this death trap even less safe, by squeezing together into this tiny cart. Clint's body was pressed into her side, Natasha normally drew comfort from having her partner close to her, but now it was just making her feel claustrophobic. She shoved against him, and grinning Clint scooted over half an inch, pressing his body against the side of the cart.

Clint was babbling about something, but Natasha couldn't focus on his words. He was saying something about roller coasters, and loose change, and stupid tourists, but she was too busy trying to fasten the flimsy seatbelt to listen. Her hands were shaking just a bit, she focused on clasping the belt buckle to make them stop.

Clint's elbow poked into her side, "You excited Nat? This, is seriously, going to be awesome." Natasha forced herself to smile at this, even though her heart was pounding too hard in her chest. Before she could lie,the same bored teenager was coming around to double check seat belts and lower the final rail over their laps. Natasha grabbed his arm after he did this.

"Are you sure that's secure?" He stared dumbly at her, as if she had spoken a foreign language. "Huh?" The Black Widow gritted her teeth. "The bar. Are you sure you secured it right? I didn't hear it click or anything." The teenager, unaware he was dealing with someone who could kill him at least ten different ways without even standing up from the cart, rolled his eyes at her. "Yeah, it's secure. They don't all click You're fine." Then he walked away to check the rest of the carts, with Natasha yelling after him.

"Hey, HEY! What do you mean they don't all click? IS THIS SECURE? IF WE DIE, YOU'RE GOING TO LOSE YOUR CRAPPY JOB YOU IDIOT, COME BACK AND MAKE SURE WE AREN'T GOING TO FLY OUT OF THIS DEATHTRAP!"

Clint reached out, grabbed the hand Natasha had extended to wave down the ride attendant who was blatantly ignoring her. Her other hand was creeping towards one of the weapons concealed on her person, she stopped herself before she did something stupid. Focused instead on Clint, who was talking to her. "Nat, Tasha! What's wrong? We're fine! This thing is totally safe, why are you freaking out?" A light of realization suddenly lit up his eyes, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Such a simple question. It shouldn't have brought up so much emotion in her. Those words made something skip a beat in her chest, suddenly the panic was filling her brain. He was giving her a way out of this, she should have just accepted it. Would have if she wasn't stupidly stubborn. "It's fine, I'm fine! It's just a ride, right? Let's just get this over with! Come on!"

He was holding her hand now, and craning his neck to try and find the guy who had checked their seat belts. "Nat, you don't want to do this. You don't have to do it. You're the freaking Black Widow, it doesn't matter if you're scared of riding a roller coaster, it doesn't make you any less badass." Natasha was breathing fast now, a war of emotions going on inside of her.

"But if I'm scared of something, I should try and conquer it." She was going to say more, but Clint interrupted. "Yes! If you are scared of something that could affect you on the job. I'm pretty sure bad guys aren't going to make you get on a roller coaster though. So not being scared of this isn't even like a useful skill you can put on your already ridiculously extensive resume. Come on, we're getting off this thing…" He craned his neck trying in vain to find the teen running the ride, then a bored voice droned over their heads.

"Thank you for riding the Roaring Cyclone, keep your arms and legs inside of the cart at all time, and enjoy your adventure, woo-hooo."

Natasha grabbed Clint's arm and held on tight, the cart was slowly moving forward. The archer was shouting at the teenager who had moved to a stand near the back of the ride, "Hey, hey KID, PUNK, STOP THE RIDE, WE WANT TO GET OFF!" Natasha didn't see how the kid replied, if he did, because her eyes were trained on the rickety wooden track extending in front of her.

Clint swore under his breathe, and grabbed her hand, as he started babbling. "You really don't need to be scared of this Nat, it'll be fun! Not as bad as parachuting out of a plane, or rappelling off a building, or remember that time you JUMPED off a building, and I caught you with my rappel hook arrow? This will be nothing compared to that! And remember when-' Eyes closed for the moment, teeth gritted, Natasha spoke. "Clint?" "Yeah?" "Shut up."

The archer shut his mouth, and she squeezed his hand before letting go and grabbing onto the metal bar pressed tight against her lap like her life depended on it. She just couldn't deal with his talking right now. They were going up the hill, and part of Natasha didn't want to look down, but part of her had to see how high they were going. Slowly, stupidly slowly, the cart was cranked up closer and closer to the top of the first drop. Her heart was racing, her palms sweating, she was never going on one of these things ever again. She'd rather jump from a plane. At least when she did that she had a parachute, or someone to catch her. On this, there was almost nothing between her flying from the cart and the unforgiving ground below.

The people down on the boardwalk below gradually grew smaller, eventually they were nothing but ants. She swallowed hard, "This- didn't look this tall when we were down there." Clint took this as permission to speak again, "Nah, it's not that tall Tash, we'll be fine, it'll be over soon. Then you can beat up that asshole who wouldn't let you get off the ride. See, it's pretty up here! You can see the ocean, and hey, look, there's the car! I think. I mean, they all kind of look the same from up here, but let's just say that's our car. Ok? This is fine Nat, you can do this. Okokok here it is, here we go!"

Then Natasha closed her eyes, tried not to have a panic attack as the ride was suddenly plummeting down the steep drop.

It wasn't that she was scared of heights. She just didn't enjoy being out of control. And on this ride, she was very much out of control.

They whooshed quickly along the tracks, at every steep turn and new drop, Natasha was sure this was it, and now the carts were going to be ripped off and thrown from the tracks. The Great Black Widow was going to die by roller coaster. Fury was going to be so pissed.

The entire ride Clint was yelling in her ear, "You ok? You're ok! This is fun! We're fine, it's almost over! Do you wanna get kettle corn after this? Oh, ok, another drop is coming UP, OK, YOU'RE FINE! THIS IS FUN, YOU'VE GOT THIS NAT, OH GOSH, I DIDN'T KNOW THERE WAS A LOOP ON THIS DAMN I-"

Natasha kind of wanted to tell him to stop talking, but honestly it was a good distraction. Plus the coaster was so fast, it literally was taking her breath away, making it difficult to speak. Her hands where white knuckled around the bar pressing against her lap, she wanted to hold Clint's hand, but honestly was scared if she did she would break a few of his fingers.

Eventually the ride came to an end, as soon as the coaster stopped Natasha was trying to get out of the cart. Clint had to stop her from maneuvering her way out of it, and told her she had to wait until the worker lifted the bars up automatically. Eventually they lifted, and as soon as she could get out, Natasha was off.
She just wanted to get away from that ride.

She bolted for the exit, Clint didn't even have time to yell at the punk working the ride, because honestly Barton had no clue what Natasha was doing, and he was worried if he didn't follow her now it could be hours until he saw her again.

Natasha didn't know what she was doing either. She was rattled from the ride, and just had to get away from it. But she didn't make it very far before she was overwhelmed by the crowds of people on the boardwalk. They were talking,yelling, pushing one another, whining, bumping into her. Natasha felt like she was in battle mode after that ride, high on adrenaline and fear. The transition from that, back into a crowd was disorienting for her, to say the least.

A hand pressed against the small of her back, Natasha jerked back and was reaching for the gun concealed in her jacket, not thinking all that straight, before she realized it was just Clint. His face was grim, guilty, and without saying a word he grabbed her hand and dragged her to the outskirts of the crowd. They made their way through the unyielding force of people pressing in on them, linked by their hands, neither letting go. Eventually they made it to a relatively uncrowded part of the boardwalk, Clint pulled Natasha to sit down on a bench that was facing the ocean.

She tangled her hands in her hair, and stared out at the waves and people on the beach, trying to calm down as Clint sat next to her. For a couple of minutes he didn't do anything, just letting her get reoriented, calmed down enough to think clearly. Then he cautiously reached out and pulled her against him, she leaned her head into his shoulder. After a few more, silent, moments, he spoke up.

"Was that the first time you rode a roller coaster?" She didn't answer his question, just nodded. Her heart rate was pretty much back to normal, but now Natasha was blushing, embarrassed she had seemed like such a weakling on that stupid ride.

Clint sighed heavily, "You should have told me Nat, if I'd known you were that anti thrill rides, I wouldn't have bugged you about riding it. It was stupid, I was being selfish, I should have been able to tell you didn't want to go on the dumb thing. You ok now?" She nodded again, felt him sigh against her.

"Are you going to murder me because I made you ride that?" She actually laughed at that, felt a bit better about the fact she had been so scared of a stupid ride. "No, I'm not going to kill you. It would be a pain to find a new partner." He accepted this. "What about the idiot who wouldn't let you get off the ride? You're not going to kill him are you? Because I love you, but I'm really not in the mood to help you hide a body. At least not today."

Natasha chuckled into Clint's jacket, wrapped one of her arms around him. "No, I'm not going to kill anyone. I'm off the job today, remember?" Now that she wasn't as freaked out, Natasha was getting even more annoyed. At herself. For being scared, for not making it off that coaster before it started, and for wanting to get off it so much in the first place. She felt weak, and hated that feeling more than she could say.

It was like Clint could read her mind, because after a bit he said, "It's ok if you were scared of the ride Nat. People get scared of stuff." She snorted at this, "Yeah, people do Barton. I don't. Not about stupid things like that at least." The things Natasha was scared of ran through her mind. It was a short list. Losing control. Her brain not being her own. Losing her partner. The Hulk. The Red Room triggering some dormant program in her brain that would make her their puppet again. Apparently she was going to have to add roller coasters to the list of things that scared her.

Clint nudged her in the side, "It's good you're scared of normal stuff. Makes you more human." It sounded like he was joking, but the words actually comforted Natasha a tiny bit. She was anything but normal, maybe it wasn't so bad she had something in common with typical people. As long as it didn't come back to haunt her on the job or anything.

She poked Clint, "You're not allowed to tell anyone about this, if Stark finds out he'd never let me live it down." Barton had the nerve to laugh at that, she spoke over him. "I'm serious! If you tell him, I'm going to tell the team that you don't like clowns. Clint froze, grew a bit pale at the thought of Tony learning about that. "You wouldn't."

She lifted an eyebrow at him. "Wouldn't I?"

They were just messing with each other of course, and they both knew it, but that didn't mean it wasn't fun. They spent a couple minutes contemplating just what Stark would do if he knew about what they didn't like, they agreed he'd probably put an army of clowns in Clint's room, but couldn't decide if he would build a mini roller coaster in Natasha's room, or just make her go on one.

They were laughing, and talking, and Natasha felt better about being scared of the ride, even though later she would probably continue to mentally beat herself up for being scared. But now, sitting with Clint, his arms around her, Natasha felt fine.

Eventually they stood up, and made their way through the still somewhat crowded boardwalk towards where their car was parked. They took a longer route, because Clint didn't want to take her by the coaster again. They were walking by a group of booths, where more bored employees were hosting the typical games you find at a carnival, or in this case a boardwalk.

Clint paused in front of one, the kind where you throw balls at milk bottles to knock them down. Natasah tugged at his hand. "Clint…. Come on, let's get some dinner that isn't deep fried or covered in sugar." But he ignored her, "Nat, come on! It's not a trip to the carnival, boardwalk, whatever, unless you play a game and win a dumb prize!" She sighed and let go of his hand. "Ok, fine, you do your thing bird brain."

He grinned cheekily, and leaned in to kiss her on the cheek before turning towards the booth holding the game.

"Hey, kid! Hook me up with some balls, I need to win a stupidly large stuffed animal for my girlfriend." The bored looking girl behind the stand rolled her eyes, took Clint's money, and handed over a bucket of balls. She didn't look bored ten minuted later, after he had somehow knocked down every single bottle, and still had over half the balls left in the bucket. The archer was beaming.

The poor employee had no idea what to do, Barton had far exceeded the number of bottles you need to hit the biggest prize. "Uh- Um, uh, ok so you can like, have whatever animals you want? Like, wow dude, are you, like, a baseball player or something?" Clint smirked, shrugged smugly. "Something like that."

Natasha stood behind Clint, and rolled her eyes at this statement. The archer took a step back, and studiously examined all of the animals the booth had to offer. Natasha thought to herself that if he picked out the massive stuffed smiling banana with dreadlocks, or the polka dot rainbow elephant, she was making him walk home. Those were just too stupid to put up with. But Clint passed over the largest most obnoxious animals, and was gazing at the buckets of smaller toys.

Eventually he pointed grandly at something Natasha couldn't quite see. "That one, it's perfect! Yup, just the one, ok, thank you so much! Have a nice day." The archer turned towards Natasha, and when she saw what he was holding, she didn't try and stop the grin from filling her face.

Clint handed her a fluffy purple teddy bear, that was wearing sun glasses for some reason. It was stupid, and cheaply made, would probably fall apart within a couple weeks. But somehow it reminded her of Clint, and for some reason, she loved it. He looked nervous, like maybe he thought she would refuse the gift or say it was stupid. instead she grabbed the stuffed animal, and pulled her partner in for a quick fierce kiss. For a second she felt his surprise, but he kissed her back quickly enough. When they parted, he was beaming.

"You like it?" Instead of answering right away, Natasha tucked the bear under one arm, and linked the other through the archers. "It's stupid. And the color is so bright it makes my eyes throw up. And who the heck makes a bear wearing sunglasses? — But yeah, I like it." Clint laughed at this. Behind them, the girl running the game was looking less bored, and more like she was realizing she might be in the presence of Avengers. She was tapping furiously away on her phone,staring intently at them in-between quick glances at her screen. Her eyes were going wide, oh yeah, she was right on the edge of making a scene about Avengers being at the boardwalk. The girl was just lifting her phone and was clearly trying to take photos of them without being noticed, when Strike Team Delta had enough, and quickly moved away from the booth. Soon enough they disappeared into the crowd.

They walked until they reached the end of the parking lot where they had left the car. Clint stopped, and pulled Natasha so she was facing him. "I'm sorry, that I made you get on that stupid coaster Nat. I should have known you didn't want to, or at least asked if you were ok with it…. I mean, I know you well enough to know when you don't want to do something. Or I thought I did. I just feel so bad, I'm really sorry." He was about to say more, but Natasha interrupted him with another kiss.

"It's fine, it's over, I don't wan't to talk about it anymore. You won me a purple bear, we're even." She grabbed his hand, and pulled him in the general direction of where they had parked the car. So she now hated roller coasters, and had ingested enough fried food to last her a lifetime. But in all, it had been a pretty good day at the boardwalk.

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