I’ll start out here by saying that I am a ClintNat shipper and I have been even before the MCU when I hardly knew anything about Marvel. Not even sure how I shipped it but I did.
But as much as I ship it I really do like Laura and their kids and I’m glad that Clint does have a loving relationship and home life. I like how they brought in that aspect of the Ultimates universe (A universe that I mostly actually completely dislike from what I know of it). And it’s because of that I stand down.
But this isn’t about ClintNat. This is about BruTasha.
Alright stick with me here.
But, put simply, initially when I first saw Age of Ultron and I saw their sudden relationship I was like ‘Ugh wtf is this? This is horrible. Why? I hate this’. I even nearly got into an argument with my friend about it who said she was glad Natasha had found love. She’s a sucker for romance in movies and that’s why she ‘didn’t like’ the Winter Soldier because there wasn’t a romance between Steve and Nat (Another pairing I don’t like).
But it’s been over a year since I saw the film. I haven’t seen it since (I’m planning to but my memory of these films is very good. I saw Winter Soldier once and remembered everything that happened and in what order) but I do remember it pretty well.
I’d like to think I’ve matured a lot in the last year. And my stance on BruTasha has changed a lot. Maybe it’s the piggybacking off the hate Staron has been getting and it’s made me see the hate BruTasha got and is still getting. I’ve been thinking about it and I’ve come to realise.
BruTasha could work if it’s written properly.
Of course I’m talking exclusively in the MCU and not the comics. They have no history (to my knowledge) in the comics so a relationship there would be a complete ass pull.
Think back to the first Avengers film. Who did S.H.I.E.L.D. send to get Bruce from his hiding place? Natasha. Why did they send Natasha? They didn’t really explain it but my guess is they just thought she was just the right woman for the job. They often showed a concern for the other to some extent. When Bruce was losing control, Natasha was trying to calm him down obviously to no avail. When Bruce first came onto the Helicarrier, other than Steve (And maybe Coulson. I can’t remember specifics), she was the only one that really treated him like a human being and not a monster. She welcomed him, she was nice and friendly to him. The whole time she treated him like a friend and showed no fear towards him.
And this goes forward into Age of Ultron pretty well.
Obviously in the time between the two films we saw Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy. During these films there’s no mention of a budding relationship or that they’d had contact with each other.
But in Age of Ultron we find out that between Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron the Avengers have been hunting down HYDRA bases. And their relationship and bond have increased to such a point where she can calm him in Hulk form and revert him back to Bruce Banner, almost like Betty Ross could do (Remember her? No? Yeah no one else does). We didn’t see this relationship develop but the heavy implication is that it has.
Over the film we get playful flirting, awkward on Bruce’s part but he’s naturally jittery so it makes sense. They even open up to each other. Bruce telling her he’s no good because he could never start a family because of the Hulk and Natasha confessing she feels like a monster because she was sterilised in the Red Room as apart of her graduation.
At the end of the film, Natasha is shown to be down or upset about the fact he’s gone AWOL. It’s even briefly mentioned in Civil War and Natasha is still shown to be kinda upset about it.
Here’s the thing though. It may have seemed to come out of nowhere but keeping all this in mind... It kinda doesn’t. Maybe it wasn’t conveyed as good as it could have been and it does take a bit of reading behind the lines. But this isn’t a comic book. They can’t put their little thought boxes in or put in 3-4 pages of flashbacks or have it evolve over a few issues. It’s a movie. There’s going to be a bit of implication and reading between the lines. These individual films take place over the course of a week at the most and 3-4 days at the least. And that is not enough time for two people to fall in love. So having these films set years apart means there’s going to be a lot we don’t see.
Originally with me, they didn’t click. They don’t completely click to be honest. But does anyone? They understand each other to some extent. Neither of them can start a family in the conventional sense, so it’s not like they can use the ‘You can’t even have kids’ argument on each other if things go south. Bruce likely is drawn to her because she treats him like a human, as Bruce Banner. And Natasha is likely drawn to him because he’s mysterious, he’s nice and he doesn’t see her like the others do.
Maybe I’m pulling all this out my ass though. But that point I’m trying to make is that, given the opportunity... I think these two could work. They could help each other. They are helping each other, I think. But we’ll see. Maybe he’ll mention her in Thor: Ragnarok? Who knows.
Wooee this was longer than I wanted it to be so if you’ve gotten this far well done and thank you very much!
