I know MCU is not your primary interest, but I was wondering if you watched the extended scene with Bruce and Natasha from AoU? I personally hated "the dead" line. It felt like Natasha was willing to give up atoning for her past just to run away with Bruce, which goes against literally all her characterization so far, in both movies and comics.
I think fandom sometimes takes the scenes they donât like in Age of Ultron out of the larger context of Natashaâs arc within the movie and also within MCU as a whole. The argument becomes, basically, that Natasha is so dedicated and so selfless and so driven by her quest for redemption that itâs impossible for her to turn anywhere left of the mission. That itâs impossible for her to even think it.
I think part of the issue is that fandom and pop culture criticism have problems evaluating female narratives without zooming in on the âfemaleâ part. We have so many lists of tropes against women, and we analyze by fitting their stories into the patterns we do not like. This is bad for feminist criticism and bad for female characters, and it intensifies whenever romance is involved: the ship war reflex these days is to argue any relationship you donât like is problematic. So you get people insisting that Natasha being brainwashed so all the files she released in TWS are fake and she was actually born in 1929 and was trained by Winter Soldier but doesnât know it doesnât undermine her character agency or heroic arc, but Natasha having feelings and acting on them does. Itâs how you get supposedly pro-Natasha rants that argue sheâs nothing more than Hulkâs boob-trampoline. There are problems with Bruce/Natasha but theyâre mostly the same problems that infect the whole of Age of Ultron, namely that itâs hard to build believable character arcs and the space for six dozen other movies at the same time.
Because Natasha wanting to run away with Bruce isnât about Bruce, or a sudden need to be a footnote in a manâs story. Itâs about Natasha. And Natashaâs storyline isnât about total selflessness, total devotion to the mission, itâs about the dangers of putting the mission before everything. She tried to escape the Red Room by following SHIELDâs orders. She dedicated years of her life to walking the straight and narrow, but they did not make her happy and they did not make her kind. Natasha saw that in The Winter Soldier, how she was shifting parts of herself aside to follow orders, how she was protecting herself by never giving her real self a voice. She was staying alive, not necessarily surviving. Then it turned out SHIELD was HYDRA all along and she hadnât been able to tell the difference. Let me repeat: she hadnât been able to tell the difference.
Of course in CA:TWS, Natasha had her big good guy moment. No more secrets, no more hiding, complete and difficult transparency. By releasing those records, she takes symbolic control over all her past heroism and all her past misdeeds. But releasing the records wasnât her idea, it was Steveâs. And she leaves that film alone, unsure of where she needs to go, but determined, I think, to figure that out for herself.
When we meet her again in AoU she hasnât figured all of that out. She doesnât even try to lift Mjolnir, remember, she doesnât need to ask if sheâs worthy. Then sheâs forced to relive her past trauma, and itâs no wonder that she goes back to the beginning, and wonders whether any of it has been worth it, whether sheâs ever been any good at all. And for a moment she stops thinking about trying to be better and wonders instead about trying to be happy. Itâs not something weâve seen her think about, before, because sheâs kept that part of herself locked away. Wanting something opens you up, makes you vulnerable. But Natasha has always been vulnerable, always wanted something, and sheâs learning that one mistake at a time.
Natasha has had moments of âweaknessâ like those in Age of Ultron in the comics before, absolutely, times when she thinks about chasing her own happiness instead of the harsh arithmetic of redemption, the weight of her ghosts. After all, carrying ghosts doesnât bring them back. You can see this as recently as Black Widow #17, but it goes back to the sixties. (Bruce is a sort of parallel to Matt: something she deeply wants but something it would lessen her to have. Something she ultimately walks away from.)Â
Like all Marvel heroes, Natashaâs suffered some imperfect stories. And like all Marvel heroes, Natashaâs power comes from her tragedy. She sharpened herself on lies and violence, and now lies and violence are all she has to fight back. Natasha hasnât always trusted her own moral compass, and she doesnât see herself as a hero. So she followed orders, sometimes, more than her own wants. But good is not something you are, itâs something that you choose. Natasha has to work, now, to be more than a mission. And that means she cannot kill her selfish impulses, because theyâre reminders she has a self. And Natasha can choose not to follow her desires into the daylight, and in the ending that is not an end, that is what she does.
