Can't actually say whether this is movie canon or not because we've gotten so little information on Black Widow's history in the movies. If you think this woman deserves her own movie, and that we deserve to have a Black Widow movie, let me hear you shout.
Cover by the fantastically talented, ever lovely Phoebe594.
Once upon a time there was a little girl. No one knew who she was; not her marks, not her handlers, not herself. They thought they did. Her marks believed whatever pretty little lies she fed them, her handlers believed she was what they had made of her, and she believed the false history they'd given her.
She knew she'd been created—forged into a weapon, really—by the Red Room, knew that she existed for the pleasure of Mother Russia, but she didn't know who she had been before the Red Room. She couldn't trust her memories any more than she could trust her handlers; both were equally manipulative, both intent on molding her, changing her, into what she was intended to be. They'd altered her body to suit their goals, altered her mind to keep her in line, taught her to alter her own appearance and speech and personality to complete the mission. They made her, but they also unmade her. They erased her, erased anything that could be hers, and left voids just waiting to be filled by whatever the mission needed. Everything about her was as flexible as the ballerina she'd once thought she was. Everything was just a performance, her entire existence a stage waiting to be dressed and populated. She was nothing more than a blank canvas, a puppet dancing on the end of someone's strings, a weapon to be guided at the direction of someone else.
Until she started filling those voids by herself. Started finding bits of herself in other people, little bits of them that resonated with the aching emptiness inside her and said, yes, that's what belongs here. That's yours, too.
It started with Barton, with Clint. Clint gave her a chance when no one else would, a life, a choice. He gave her that warm breath of life that turned wooden limbs and strangling strings into humanity and overwhelming freedom. He asked her questions, not about her missions, but about herself, and he helped her find the answers she didn't know. Tea or coffee? (Hot chocolate. Coffee to wake up, tea to calm down, but hot chocolate was the one she truly enjoyed.) What's your favorite food? (She still didn't know, but that was okay, because finding it was half the fun and it was her choice.) What do you like to do in your free time? (She liked to watch people, to understand them and to search for more of those missing bits of herself. Clint sometimes joked that it was a little creepy, but it was okay because it was something she chose to do.) Clint never treated her like a puppet, only ever as a person, and that helped her to see herself as a person. He mostly filled in the little holes, but there were so many of them.
With Steve Rogers, it was that need to be the legend your country had gifted you and that struggle to be anything outside of that. Other people didn't see that when they looked at him, but she did. Steve knew the façade of a legend, a title, and he wore it as well as she did, only his façade was apple pie and innocence and righteousness and friendly smiles and hers had been coldness and worldly wisdom and danger and satisfied smirks. They'd both been expected to be perfect, to pour themselves into the service of their respective countries, to mold themselves to their patriotic duties for the greater good and to forget everything personal. They were both trying to find their separate ways out from behind their façades.
With Bruce Banner, it was the monster inside, feral and snarling and unconcerned by the damage it left in its wake, monsters they were both trying so hard to distance themselves from and they both feared they never could. His was green and massive and physical, but hers was red, red, red and no less gigantic and bore down on her with the same weight. They both struggled with pretending to be entirely human, with their monsters raging behind their eyes and singing in their veins all the while. They both hid so much of the real human parts of themselves for fear they would get rejected right along with their monsters.
With Tony Stark, it was self-focus, the survival instinct that made one insulate oneself and one's own needs to be dealt with first, an instinct that had been beaten into their bones. He had survived a different wilderness than she had, but they'd both been utterly alone in it, both had to save themselves and change themselves to survive it, and this team—the very idea of having a team—was so new to the both of them. It wasn't easy to let people in, to cover their backs and trust them to cover yours in return, to let go of some things, but they were trying. They were both changing themselves again.
With Thor, it was the struggle to fight a different way, to fight for different results. She's seen the killer in his eyes, the ferocity of the battle instincts that painted his every movement, just as she saw the restraint he held himself with most days. She'd seen the realization that he'd nearly killed Cap and Stark that first time and the regret that had come with, the determination not to let it happen again. He was born and bred to be a warrior, as she was, had fought with the same lethal intent his entire life as she had, and now was fighting the same struggle she was to be more conscious of life even in the midst of battle, more careful, to not let instinct overwhelm their fight, to withhold from taking a life unless necessary. They were both trying to make killing their last option and talking their first, to retrain themselves, to discipline themselves.
With Vision, it was his struggle to be human in the first place, even to simulate it. He was a synthetic analogue of human functions without human logic or human emotions, trying to live as one of them. She was actually human, technically, but it didn't always feel like it, not when she struggled to understand their logic, to empathize with certain people, not when she was only fitting in by virtue of simulating a normal response for someone else's comfort. They were both viewing this world from the outside and trying to understand it and belong to it and they both knew deep down that they never truly would.
With Sam Wilson, it was the fact that he was broken and he recognized and embraced it. He knew that there was something inside of him that wasn't going to go away or heal itself and he dealt with it head-on, didn't shy away from it or pretend it didn't exist. She admired that in him, even as she admitted to herself that she wasn't entirely there yet; she wondered how long it had taken him to reach this point, and if it was only her nature as a liar that made it so hard for her. But she tried to be honest about who and what she was, with herself, if no one else, and she could see that in him. They were both broken and they both knew they would never be entirely whole, but they were both trying to live with the brokenness.
With Maria Hill, it was the underestimation. People looked at the two of them and thought pretty little things. They thought small and pretty meant dainty and empty and they were wrong; both she and Hill knew how to use this to their advantage, to allow their enemies to underestimate them until the last moment. They regretted their misconceptions, regretted ever comparing a raging hurricane to a decorative fountain the second they crushed them into the ground without a second thought and forgot about them before they even moved on. They said smile, sweetheart and didn't expect sharp teeth to bite them. They knew how to use people's expectations against them, knew how to leap from the shadows at the opportune moment and triumph.
There was so much of her that resonated with Wanda Maximoff. They'd both grown up in slavic countries, and neither of them could ever really go home. They'd both been changed into something physically greater than they'd been, supposedly for the greater good, both been weapons forged for dictators. They'd both fought for current enemies and against current allies in their pasts. They both carried the regret of their pasts, the tragedies of their lives, and the consequences of their own actions with them every day, into every battle. They'd both lived their own nightmares and found themselves still haunted by them.
There was even more of her that resonated with the Winter Soldier, the brainwashed asset with the blood of countless kills on his hands, the blank slate waiting to be told who he was, follower of orders. They were shadows, clinging to their own inherent darkness because that's who they were; they can do good, they can be good, but at their core, the darkness will always be a part of them. Shadows certain they don't deserve forgiveness, and less certain some days whether they want it, or whether they should stay in their own endless suffering and hope that it somehow balances with everything they've done. They will never be righteous, but they can try to make amends, they can be good.
She saw herself in villains, too, sometimes. In the bad guys she took down for S.H.I.E.L.D., in the threats she faced with the Avengers. She saw her cunning, her manipulative side, her ability to be cruel, her determination to do what needs to be done to achieve her vision of what the world should be, her occasional urge to burn the world down and start fresh. Sometimes, but not always, she resonated with the people on the other side; she knew that they shared traits, acknowledged it, and worked harder not to share everything, not to become them.
She found bits of herself in everyone she met, absorbing humanity through her skin as she passed among them.
That was what made her unique, that was the bit that was just hers: she could see all of their sides, she could relate to all of them, friend and foe alike. She could see every angle of human interactions. To friends, that made her sympathetic and compassionate. To enemies, that made her dangerous.
That's what she was, really, compassionate and dangerous, friend and enemy. Black and white both, all spattered in red. She was layers of contradictions, matryoshka, practicality and sentiment tucked inside darkness and light tucked inside danger and aid. She didn't fit into anyone's boxes and she'd break anyone who ever tried again.
She grew her hair red, to embrace the red in her ledger, to stand out in a way spies weren't supposed to, to defy the people who'd tried to take away everything that was hers.
She worked for whom she chose, with whom she chose. When S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, she walked away with her head held high to make her own way, completely free of her past for the first time, even as she was more tied to it than ever by its revelation to the public. She joined a team of gods and legends and billionaires and superpowers because she could and when they split, she tread her own path.
They called her many things in the Red Room: Natalia Romanova, Red Death, the Black Widow, the Slavic Shadow, the Mistress of Death.
She called herself Natasha Romanoff. She called herself agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. She called herself an Avenger.
And just because she could, to take away the power they'd once held over her, to take what they'd given her in derision and make it her own, to turn the shame and regret of her history into something she could be proud of, she called herself Black Widow.
As always, comments, critiques, and constructive criticism are welcome as I am always looking to improve.
Have a marvelous day!
M1ssUnd3rst4nd1ng