15 surprising facts you didn’t know about Black Widow

The Black Widow and Bruce Banner romance is a movies-only development

Although Natasha has a long history of romances throughout Marvel Comics, the MCU chose to pair her with someone her comic character had never actually been with before: Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo).

Fans who have seen Avengers: Age of Ultron will recall the somewhat awkward romance that unfolds between Bruce and Natasha, complete with him falling on top of her later in the film. Director Joss Whedon’s portrayal of their relationship has been heavily criticized right alongside the early MCU’s sexualization of Natasha. The fact that the relationship deviated from the comics probably didn’t help its case.

Of course, whatever is going on between Natasha and Bruce in Age of Ultron never goes anywhere in the later films. Despite Joe and Anthony Russo’s best efforts, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame never return to the budding relationship. In fact, the directors told IndieWire that the subplot just wasn’t central enough to make the cut — and that they “couldn’t wrap up loose threads just because [they] wanted to.”

The most closure fans get from this movies-only relationship is a few brief glances between the would-be couple and Bruce’s grief after Natasha’s demise.

It’s interesting that the films chose to go this direction at all with these characters, especially since there was no foundation for this romance in the comics. Had it received more attention beyond Age of Ultron, it’s possible these two could have become one of the franchise’s major ships. Alas, it looks like that won’t happen now.