Natasha + Character Development

blueincandescence:

There’s been some talk of Natasha not being the same as she was in Captain America: the Winter Soldier. That’s perfectly true, good eye. She’s not. The events of that film changed her. The Natasha we get in AoU is a year older and a year wiser and has a home, but she’s not a different character — she’s the character that CA:TWS created.

Check out this conversation:

Steve: It was not my first kiss since 1945. I’m ninety-five, I’m not dead.
Natasha: Nobody special, though?
Steve: Believe it or not, it’s kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience.
Natasha: Well, that’s alright, you just make something up.
Steve: What, like you?
Natasha: I don’t know. The truth is a matter of circumstances, it’s not all things to all people all the time. And neither am I.
Steve: That’s a tough way to live.
Natasha: It’s a good way not to die, though.
Steve: You know, it’s kind of hard to trust someone when you don’t know who that someone really is.
Natasha: Yeah. Who do you want me to be?

Here, Natasha is in an odd place. She wants there to be someone special for Steve. She thinks he deserves it. For herself, she makes do. She meets people and pretends and that’s enough. Here, she agrees that it’s hard to trust her, but what can she do? It’s a good way not to die.

Once SHIELD falls and HYDRA is revealed, her axis is completely thrown of kilter. She wants Steve to trust her. She’s sad that Fury doesn’t, not as much as Maria. She’s not ready for the world to see her as she really is, whoever could be, but she’s willing to do what it takes to make things right.

At the end of CA:TWS, this is where we leave her:

Steve: Not going with him? [Fury]
Natasha: No.
Steve: Not staying here?
Natasha: I blew all my covers, I gotta go figure out a new one.
Steve: That might take a while.
Natasha: I’m counting on it.

Natasha isn’t single-mindedly in pursuit of wiping the red out of her ledger. If she were, she would have gone with Fury and continued fighting the fight. Instead, we see her taking some time for herself. Now, there could definitely be some ass-kicking involved, but I really get the vibe that she’s about to kick back for a bit and figure her stuff out.

Between CA:TWS and AoU, she’s lost her center but found a home with the Avengers. She’s decided to try to be herself and that is awkward when you’ve been disseminating for so long. 

In Bruce, she finds the reversal of the first conversation with Steve. Bruce (and the rest of the world) knows who she is, past and present, and he trusts her. Bruce, creator of Hulks and survivor of childhood abuse, has shared life experience.

Now, I’m a ‘shipper, so obviously I want them to be more, if not end game. But, even if brucenat never reunites, even if Bruce was the absolute wrong person for her to try it out on, this step that everyone is maligning so much is crucial to her character development.

Natasha wants for herself real love and she takes active steps to obtain it. It’s the logical next step to her character growth in CA:TWS. 

Brucenat may not be your thing, totally fine, but it isn’t superfluous to Natasha’s character arc.

SPOILER:

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