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Natasha Romanoff - also known as Black Widow - is a heroic character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Based on the character from Marvel Comics, she was a former spy for the KGB before the collapse of the Soviet Union. After the KGB's dissolution, Romanoff was recruited by the global peacekeeping organization S.H.I.E.L.D., quickly becoming one of their top operatives. She would later become one of the founding members of the heroic team known as the Avengers alongside Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye and the Hulk.

Black Widow has appeared in Iron Man 2, Avengers Assemble, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Black Widow, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. She has been portrayed by Scarlett Johansson in all of her appearances.

Biography[]

Early life[]

Natalia Alianovna Romanoff was born in 1984 in Stalingrad. At a young age, Romanoff was recruited by the KGB. In a Red Room Academy, she endured both an education and indoctrination into the world of spy-craft. Romanoff excelled in this strict training environment and soon became regarded as a master spy and one of the world's greatest assassins. Whilst in the Red Room Academy, she became an outstanding marksman, resulting in her being forced to execute an innocent man, which would later haunt her.

Romanoff's ruthless effectiveness in later years earned her the Black Widow mantle, deriving from the Red Room program she went through. As a final ceremony to complete her training, Romanoff was sterilized, as to avoid any distractions and focus solely on her missions, something she deeply regretted later in her life.

Due to both her expertise and her growing threat to global security, Romanoff quickly appeared on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar, prompting Nick Fury to send Clint Barton to eliminate her. Hawkeye disobeyed this order, recognizing Romanoff's skills, and recommended her for recruitment into S.H.I.E.L.D.. At the behest of Fury, Romanoff later defected from Russia and joined the ranks of S.H.I.E.L.D.. From that moment on, she developed a lasting partnership with Barton, becoming best friends with him. Together, they had tactical missions within Budapest, and many other locations. The pair grew so close that Romanoff was the only other person Barton told about his secret family. She became a good friend to Barton's wife, Laura, and adopted an aunt-like relationship with their children, Cooper and Lila.

Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.[]

In one of her earliest S.H.I.E.L.D. missions, in 2009, Romanoff was assigned to protect a nuclear scientist. Despite having escorted the engineer from Iran and having successfully made it to the rendezvous in Odessa, Ukraine, Romanoff and the scientist were both ambushed by the Winter Soldier, an assassin sent by HYDRA to neutralize the scientist as he was deemed a threat. Though she and the scientist were pushed over a cliff, Romanoff managed to save both herself and the man she was protecting. Seeing this, the Winter Soldier fired a single round through Romanoff's stomach and into the scientist, effectively killing him. After this encounter, Romanoff would go on to attempt to track down the Winter Soldier for an unspecified amount of time but was forced to give up after accepting that he was more elusive than any other enemy she had encountered.

In 2010, Romanoff was assigned to infiltrate Stark Industries so that she could spy on Tony Stark. The purpose of this surveillance was so that S.H.I.E.L.D. could determine if Iron Man was a suitable candidate for the Avenger Initiative. With Pepper Potts being given the task of managing the company, Romanoff - under the alias of Natalie Rushman - acted as Stark's personal assistant. Following an altercation between Stark and James Rhodes at Stark's home, Romanoff discovered that Tony was suffering from palladium poisoning caused by the arc reactor in his chest. She provided this information to Fury who later offered Stark a temporary solution: a serum that would slow the progress of the poison.

Later, Black Widow would assist Iron Man in his final confrontation with Ivan Vanko and Justin Hammer. While Iron Man and War Machine were busy battling against Hammer's new series of robots, she infiltrated Hammer Industries where she suspected Vanko was operating the Hammer Drones from. She easily overpowered Hammer's security guards, but found that Vanko had already left the building to confront Iron Man personally. She was, however, able to recover Hammer's data on the drones and evidence that could be used to incriminate him.

Assembling the Avengers[]

In 2012, Romanoff was assigned to bring in Dr. Bruce Banner, who had gone into hiding since his last rampage as the Hulk. Approaching Banner in India, she told him that S.H.I.E.L.D. required his expertise in the field of gamma radiation in order to locate the Tesseract, an item of considerable power that had been stolen from S.H.I.E.L.D. by the rogue Asgardian Loki. With Romanoff's assurance that he would not be imprisoned, Banner agreed to go with her.

After Loki was apprehended in Germany, Romanoff interrogated him, tricking him into revealing that he was planning to have Banner transform into the Hulk aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. The Helicarrier was soon attacked by the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that Loki had brainwashed after arriving on Earth, with Hawkeye leading them. During the attack, Banner did turn into the Hulk, and in his rage, he attacked Black Widow. The Green Goliath was drawn away from Romanoff by Thor, giving her the chance to escape. She would then confront Hawkeye and, after an intense fight, managed to incapacitate him. When Hawkeye regained consciousness following the attack, Loki's influence over him had faded.

Following the assault on the Helicarrier, the newly-formed Avengers initiated their counter-attack on Loki who had fled to Stark Tower in New York. The god of mischief had used the Tesseract to open a wormhole in the sky above the city, allowing the aliens known as the Chitauri to swarm through and invade. The Avengers mobilized and were able to hold back the alien onslaught until Iron Man redirected a nuclear missile through the wormhole, destroying the Chitauri mothership on the other side and thus disrupting the aliens' neural network, thus instantly killing all the Chitauri remaining in the city. With the Chitauri defeated and the Tesseract secured, Loki was captured once again and taken back to Asgard by Thor to stand trial for his crimes.

Fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.[]

Following Loki's defeat, Black Widow continued her work with S.H.I.E.L.D., now working alongside Captain America. In 2014, the mysterious Winter Soldier appeared in Washington and attempted to assassinate Nick Fury. After both Rogers and Romanoff were attacked by their fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on the grounds of the Triskelion, the pair went undercover, using information provided by Maria Hill to seek out the source of the corruption within S.H.I.E.L.D.. Their investigation led them to an abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker where, to their astonishment, they discovered the consciousness of Dr. Arnim Zola installed on the outdated computer banks. Zola revealed to them that HYDRA, the former Nazi deep-science cabal that Captain America had fought against in World War II, had survived into the 21st century and was emerging within S.H.I.E.L.D.. Cap and Black Widow narrowly avoided death when they escaped from the bunker just before it was destroyed by a missile.

Enlisting the aid of Sam Wilson, Cap and Black Widow infiltrated the Triskelion in order to stop HYDRA from launching a trio of Helicarriers to eliminate their enemies. While the Helicarriers were launched, Cap and the Falcon were able to bring them down before they carried out their mission. Meanwhile, Black Widow, accompanied by the still-living Fury, confronted Alexander Pierce and killed him. While HYDRA had been thwarted, S.H.I.E.L.D. had all but collapsed, reduced to a handful of cells worldwide operating in deep cover. Romanoff herself was forced to go off the grid after S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files on her, including her morally dubious activities, were leaked onto the internet.

The Ultron Offensive[]

With HYDRA threatening the world once more, the Avengers reassembled and launched a campaign to put down the ruthless organization once and for all. In 2015, the heroes attacked one of HYDRA's last remaining strongholds and captured Wolfgang von Strucker. Within Strucker's base, the Avengers found the sceptre once wielded by Loki and reclaimed it.

Following the battle, the Avengers returned to Stark Tower in New York where they celebrated their victory. During this time, Romanoff flirted with Bruce Banner, having developed a fondness for him. However, during the party, Stark's AI assistant J.A.R.V.I.S. had been overseeing the research on Loki's sceptre which was being combined with Stark's Ultron Program. This combination resulted in the birth of an artificial intelligence that viewed the Avengers as an obstacle to global peace, a directive that the intelligence believed could only be fulfilled via humanity's extinction. Taking control of Stark's Iron Legion robots, Ultron crashed the Avengers' party. The heroes destroyed most of the robots, but one escaped with the sceptre.

Later, the Avengers received reports of robotics labs and factories being overtaken by Ultron, who was using these facilities to build new bodies for itself as well as an army of drones. They learned that the malicious AI was also attempting to acquire vibranium, a near-indestructible metal that Ultron planned to use to create a perfect body for itself. While the heroes failed to stop Ultron from obtaining the vibranium, they would later steal his completed android body during a conflict in Seoul. It was during that confrontation that Black Widow was captured by Ultron, who took her to an abandoned HYDRA base beneath Novi Grad in Sokovia. There, Ultron revealed its master plan; having used most of the stolen vibranium to build a massive anti-gravity engine system, the genocidal machine intended to raise the landmass that Novi Grad stood upon and then drop it, causing an extinction-level event.

Black Widow was rescued when the Avengers arrived in Sokovia to put a stop to Ultron's plan. Supplied with her weapons by Hawkeye, she joined her teammates as fought against Ultron's army of robots and evacuated civilians with the help of Nick Fury. After Ultron's army was wiped out and Novi Grad destroyed, Romanoff Joined Captain America at the Avengers' new headquarters where they would begin training new recruits War Machine, Falcon, Scarlet Witch and Vision.

Civil War[]

In 2016, many world governments had called for the Avengers to be held accountable for the collateral damage brought about by their numerous battles. As such, the United Nations established the Sokovia Accords, an international treaty that would serve to regulate the actions of powered individuals. As the members of the Avengers fell into disagreement over the Accords, a terrorist attack occurred in Vienna where UN delegates had met to sign the treaty. The bombing resulted in the deaths of numerous attendees, including T'Chaka, the King of Wakanda. Security footage from outside the building prior to the bomb blast indicated that Bucky Barnes - the Winter Soldier - had carried out the attack, but Captain America did not believe this and would later track Bucky down to get the answers himself.

Due to their conflicting views over the Sokovia Accords and Cap's protection of the Winter Soldier, the Avengers team became split between those who signed the Accords and those who refused to do so. Black Widow had signed the Accords and sided with Iron Man as the Avengers came to blows at the Leipzig-Halle Airport. As the fight dragged on, however, Romanoff became disheartened as her friends continued fighting each other and ultimately decided to help Rogers and Barnes escape so that they could track down the real instigator of their current conflict. Following the Avengers' clash, Romanoff was forced to go on the run.

Infinity War[]

In 2018, the Avengers would reunite once again in order to protect not only Earth, but the entire universe. The alien warlord Thanos had sent his minions to Earth in order to obtain the Mind Stone, which was embedded in Vision's head. Black Widow joined Captain America and Falcon as they travelled to Scotland where both Vision and Scarlet Witch had been in hiding since the Avengers broke up. They found their friends being attacked by Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive and managed to force the two alien warriors into retreating. Afterwards, the heroes discussed how best to protect the Mind Stone and felt it necessary to separate the stone from Vision. However, they had no means of doing so without killing Vision in the process.

The Avengers later travelled to Wakanda where Black Panther agreed to assist them. While Shuri and her scientists worked on removing the Mind Stone from Vision's head safely, the others rallied the armies of Wakanda to fend off the Black Order for when they inevitably came. The Order soon arrived, leading an army of vicious Outriders into battle against the Avengers and the Wakandan forces. During the battle, Black Widow fought against Proxima Midnight and was almost killed, but Scarlet Witch came to her rescue, using her telekinesis to throw Midnight into the path of one of her own Thresher machines.

While the heroes did succeed in routing the alien attackers, it turned out to be for naught. Immediately after the battle, Thanos appeared, having acquired the other five Infinity Stones. With the Stones' power, it was impossible for anyone to stop him from killing Vision and taking the Mind Stone, completing the Infinity Gauntlet. With all six Stones, Thanos snapped his fingers and accomplished his goal: the annihilation of 50% of all life across the universe. After Thanos disappeared, Scarlet Witch, Black Panther, Winter Soldier, Falcon and most of the Wakandan army suddenly turned to dust.

Weeks after the Decimation, the surviving Avengers reassembled after Captain Marvel brought Iron Man and Nebula back to Earth after being stranded in space. The group formulated a plan to find Thanos with the intention of taking the Infinity Gauntlet from him and undoing the effects of the Snap. Taking the Benatar, the Guardians of the Galaxy's ship, the heroes tracked Thanos down to Planet 029-S where the Mad Titan had established his Garden. Arriving at Thanos' homestead, the Avengers ambushed the villain and demanded that he surrender the Infinity Stones. Thanos then revealed that he had used the Stones' power to destroy them, thus preventing anyone else from using them and undoing his work. In a fit of rage, Thor then killed Thanos by decapitating him with his Stormbreaker axe. With no way to reverse the Snap, the Avengers had no choice but to return home and live with the weight of their failure.

Final sacrifice[]

Five years after the Decimation, the Avengers were reassembled when Scott Lang - Ant-Man - returned from the Quantum Realm. Lang had missed the Decimation and its immediate aftermath due to being trapped in a sub-atomic state and had only returned because of a fluke accident. His work with Dr. Pym had taught him that tunneling through the Quantum Realm provided access to alternate timelines, thus it was possible for the Avengers to travel back in time to collect the Infinity Stones, bring them back to their present and use them to undo the Decimation.

While Stark, Hulk and Lang worked on constructing a device to allow them to travel through time via the Quantum Realm, Black Widow went to Japan in search of Clint Barton. Since the Decimation, Barton - who had lost his entire family to the Snap - had taken on the identity of "Ronin" and was hunting down and executing criminals. Romanoff found Barton and told him of the Avengers' plan, but Barton was hesitant to hope. He eventually decided to rejoin the team, however, and he joined Romanoff when the pair were sent to the planet Vormir in the past to acquire the Soul Stone.

On Vormir, Romanoff and Barton encountered the Red Skull, who had been acting as the guardian of the Soul Stone since being exiled to the planet decades ago. He informed the pair that in order to acquire the Stone, one must sacrifice someone they love. This was the cruelest predicament for Romanoff and Barton as they both cared for one another deeply and both were willing to sacrifice their lives for the greater good. The situation became a contest between the two as they fought each other over which of them should die to obtain the Soul Stone. Hawkeye was paralyzed by Black Widow's taser, but was able to recover and shoot an explosive arrow towards the cliff's edge, knocking Widow to the side. He then rushed towards the cliff and jumped off, but Black Widow also jumped and grabbed Hawkeye, shooting a grapple and attaching it to him so he wouldn't fall, before trying to sacrifice herself. However, Hawkeye was able to grab onto Black Widow's arm, but could not pull her up without both of them falling.

Hawkeye got angry at Romanoff for stopping him from jumping. Black Widow asked Hawkeye to let her go, assuring him it was okay and knowing that there was no other way, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Hawkeye desperately tried to change her mind, as he did not want his best friend to die. However, Black Widow felt the exact same and forced him to let her go by kicking off and jumping off the cliff wall. Black Widow then fell to her death as a devastated Hawkeye watched, helpless to do anything else. With the sacrifice being made, Hawkeye then obtained the Soul Stone.

In the end, the Avengers' time heist was pulled off successfully and they retrieved all of the Infinity Stones. Hulk used a Nano Gauntlet built by Iron Man to harness the Stones and reversed the effects of the Snap, restoring to life everyone whom Thanos had killed. Due to the circumstances behind Romanoff's death, she could not be resurrected. The Avengers ensured that their friend's sacrifice was meaningful by defeating the past version of Thanos when he pursued them through time.

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