Black Widow (Earth-199999)

The Black Widow, born Natalia Alianovna Romanoff in 1984 and commonly known as Natasha Romanoff, is a Russian American hero, founding member of the Avengers, and former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. She is regarded as one of history's greatest spies, and the gold standard of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in particular. Alongside Captain America and Nick Fury, she was ironically responsible for bringing an end to S.H.I.E.L.D. as the world knew it, publicly releasing all of its classified files as a means of bringing an end to the Hydra conspiracy that had tainted the organization for decades. She shares a deep bond of respect with fellow Avenger and former agent Hawkeye.

Biography

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

In 2010, Black Widow was assigned by Nick Fury to go undercover in Stark Industries in order to get close to Tony Stark. She disguised herself as a notary public named Natalie Rushman, and despite extreme reservations about the distasteful corporate atmosphere, quickly worked her way into a position to meet personally with Mr. Stark. Romanoff's sex appeal made it a trivial matter to cozy up to Stark, and she was quickly appointed as his personal assistant. Between his palladium poisoning and tarnished public image, Stark's life had become a shambles, and S.H.I.E.L.D. was soon forced to help him fix it. Fury met with him personally and revealed Romanoff's true identity. Romanoff maintained her cover at Stark Industries, quietly moving to the side of new CEO Pepper Potts as Stark fell from grace.

During a presentation by Justin Hammer at Stark Expo, a platoon of armed drones and an Iron Man suit piloted by James Rhodes unexpectedly attacked when Iron Man himself appeared. Widow tracked down Hammer and learned from him that Ivan Vanko, previously thought dead, was responsible. Hitching a ride from Stark's chauffeur Happy Hogan, Widow infiltrated Hammer Industries headquarters and fought her way through the security, only to find that Vanko had evacuated. Nonetheless, Widow was able to access Hammer's systems to reboot Rhodes' suit and stop his attack. On Fury's orders, she also recovered various Hammer Industries files for S.H.I.E.L.D.'s records. Her assignment concluded, Widow wrote in her report to S.H.I.E.L.D. that she would recommend "Iron Man" for the Avenger Initiative, but not "Tony Stark." Fury reassigned Widow to trail Bruce Banner at Culver University in Virginia. There, she disguised herself as a student to avoid attention, but Banner soon transformed into the Hulk and commenced a large battle with forces led by General Thunderbolt Ross. Fury ordered her to prevent Ross from capturing or killing Banner, but Widow was entirely a non-factor. Emil Blonsky had been "enhanced" by Ross to counter the Hulk, and the overall might of the battle meant that Widow could do little to influence it.

Later, Widow trailed Banner to New York, where he had already been taken captive by Ross. Fury told her that Banner had met with a scientist named Samuel Sterns, so she attempted to follow up with him and tie up any loose ends. She found that Sterns had been deformed and was now a more ambitious, manipulative version of himself, though still physically harmless. Widow disabled him with a shot to leg and called for a crew to retrieve him. Returning outside, she saw the Hulk fighting Emil Blonsky in his own large, hulking form—known as the Abomination. Unable to contribute, Widow watched as the Hulk defeated his foe and ran through the city to his escape. Widow returned to Fury and told him that the time had come to accept that S.H.I.E.L.D. were hopelessly outmatched with their current capabilities. She convinced him that basic human skill and firearms were of no use against "gods and monsters" like Hulk and the also recently emerged Thor.

In 2012, while on the search for bootlegged Stark weaponry in Moscow for S.H.I.E.L.D., Black Widow was compromised by an unknown assassin taking out the weapons dealer responsible, Fjodorov. Widow’s alias Tatiana Sokolova was suspected of the crime, forcing her into another identity. Later in her hotel room, she was fruitlessly attacked by a group of agents. After defeating them, she was given a SIM card; when she used the card, she spoke to a woman calling herself Sofia, who looked up to Widow’s legendary history, but believed she had fallen from grace in her modern, less violent time with S.H.I.E.L.D. Sofia believed herself to be the heir to the Black Widow name, and challenged Romanoff to prove that she still deserved it, in exchange for information about the bootlegged Starktech. Romanoff cut off contact with S.H.I.E.L.D., crushing her tracking device and communicator.

Sofia gave Romanoff coordinates to a hockey rink that was being constructed for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. Arriving there, Natasha fought off a pair of thugs linked to Fjodorov; the thugs had apparently been looking for Sofia. She confronted Sofia on the ice rink, but with the flip of a switch Sofia caused her to fall into the freezing water, holding her there at gunpoint. She chided Natasha for not killing the thugs, and accused her of being responsible for the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that had been tailing her. Regardless, she told Romanoff that Fjodorov's men and one General Starodoub were meeting their buyer, Yuri Klementiev, that night at a party on the latter’s yacht. Believing that Romanoff had “cheated” in their “competition” to intercept the dropoff, Sofia gave herself a head start by leaving her freezing in the water. After her departure, Phil Coulson arrived to pull Romanoff out, and offered S.H.I.E.L.D.'s assistance in the remainder of her mission. When the time came, Romanoff boarded Klementiev's yacht under the alias of supermodel Marya Konn. There she met Gennady Markov, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who had been working undercover as one of Klementiev's bodyguards. Markov pointed out to her the buyer, Iranian intelligence agent Mohammed Yavari. Romanoff snuck and fought her way into a guarded room on the yacht, where she found an American man cuffed to a briefcase. She seduced him into showing her the contents of the case: a flash drive belonging to the indicted Justin Hammer. She knocked him out, stole the drive, downloaded its contents to her phone, and uploaded a tracking program onto the drive. She attempted to escape the yacht, but ran into Sofia holding Markov at gunpoint. Sofia demanded the drive, and Romanoff handed it to her, but she shot and killed Markov anyway.

S.H.I.E.L.D. analyzed the contents of the drive, and found that it contained targeting software for Hammer's bootlegged version of Stark's Jericho missile. Various forces around the world had acquired Jericho missiles, but they were essentially useless without the software. Widow followed the drive's tracking signal to a division of Sojourn Enterprises in Vladivostok, owned by Richard Frampton. Infiltrating the building and accessing Sojourn's files, Widow found that it was actually a front for the Ten Rings terrorist organization, and that fully equipped Jericho missiles were being shipped to the Korean border at that moment. Widow speculated that Frampton had hired Sofia to kill Fjodorov and his partners after they realized they were selling to Ten Rings. She commandeered a train to the launch site, where Frampton was planning to fire the missiles at the Korean demilitarized zone to facilitate overall global destabilization. Widow found an emergency control panel on the launchpad, retargeting the missiles to the command building nearby. She was confronted by Sofia, and the two fought until the latter was killed by the blast from the missile's launch. The Jericho landed in the command building, killing Ten Rings' leaders, including Frampton. S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives led by Coulson and Nick Fury arrived soon after, apprehending the remaining Ten Rings forces.

The Avengers

In May of 2012, Asgardian prince Loki invaded a S.H.I.E.L.D. underground base and stole the Tesseract, which scientist Erik Selvig was studying under Nick Fury's supervision. Loki used his magic scepter (secretly containing the Mind Stone) to take mental control of Selvig and Hawkeye, escaping with the two of them in his thrall. Loki secretly intended to use the Tesseract to open a portal to Earth, allowing an army of Chitauri through it and taking over the planet. In the wake of this emergency, Fury reinstituted the Avengers Initiative, and assigned Widow to convince Bruce Banner to join the project. Banner was of particular value given that the Tesseract emitted primarily gamma radiation, a subject in which Banner was an expert. Banner was suspicious of Widow and S.H.I.E.L.D., but was pleased by their need for himself rather than his monstrous Hulk persona. He agreed to help, and came peacefully. The two met on the helicarrier with Fury and the recently revived Captain America, Steve Rogers. S.H.I.E.L.D. deputy director Maria Hill was also present on the helicarrier and an integral part of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s contribution to the mission.

Loki was soon located in Stuttgart, Germany, having brutally murdered scientist Heinrich Schäfer at a gala. Widow piloted a Quinjet with Captain America and dropped him off to apprehend Loki. Loki resisted, but was soon also confronted by the surprise appearance of Iron Man, who had recently agreed to join the Avengers after some deliberation. The odds against him, Loki gave himself up to S.H.I.E.L.D. custody. As Widow flew the Quinjet with the three others back to the Helicarrier, they were suddenly stormed upon by Loki's brother, Thor, who swooped in and carried him away in flight as Cap and Iron Man gave chase. Thor sought to sway his brother away from his malicious plans, or otherwise bring him back to Asgard for reprisal. The three heroes briefly fought as Loki watched on, but Thor was soon convinced that they needed to keep Loki on Earth in order to find the Tesseract. The more-or-less officially formed Avengers regrouped and discussed Loki's plans. Loki's appearance in Stuttgart was a distraction to allow Hawkeye to steal a valuable source of iridium elsewhere in the city: a necessary component in the stabilized portal that Loki desired. Loki was put into confinement in a large, virtually unbreakable container in the Helicarrier that had originally been designed to hold the Hulk in case of emergency. The Helicarrier was soon attacked by forces led by Hawkeye (containing various militants opposed to S.H.I.E.L.D.), forcing the Avengers into defensive positions. Widow confronted Hawkeye directly, and in the ensuing fight between them was able to jostle his head and free him of Loki's mind control. Loki was freed as part of the larger battle, escaping with the scepter and fleeing. Hawkeye was intensely remorseful for his actions, but Widow assured him that it wasn't his fault.

Phil Coulson was killed by Loki in the chaos, and his death motivated the Avengers to band together. Stark deduced that Loki would use his Stark Tower as his energy source, and the team made their way to Manhattan. As they arrived, Loki and Selvig used the Tesseract to open up a portal in the sky, and the Avengers began fighting them back while thinking of a way to close the portal. Widow, Hawkeye, and Captain America primarily dealt with grunts on the ground and organized evacuation efforts. Widow eventually made her way to Stark Tower, learning that Loki's scepter was the key to disabling the portal device. Hulk also went to Stark Tower, smashing Loki himself repeatedly and effectively making him a non-entity for the rest of the battle. Elsewhere, the World Security Council decided to nuke Manhattan, seeing no other way to stop the Chitauri. After the missile was launched, Iron Man caught up to it, taking hold of it and carrying it into the portal to deep space. He threw the missile at the Chitauri mothership, causing a catastrophic explosion that in turned caused a massive feedback discharge, killing the Chitauri forces on Earth. Iron Man's suit powered down, and he plummeted back to the portal, falling back through moments before Widow used the scepter to close it, blocking off the coming explosion in the process. Thor flew into the sky and caught Iron Man, delivering him safely to the ground. The Avengers assembled at Stark Tower, taking the injured Loki into custody once more. Thor took possession of the Tesseract, using it to transport himself and Loki back to Asgard and at last bring his brother to justice. The Tesseract itself would be stored in Asgard's treasure room, among several other invaluable artifacts.

The fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra

Romanoff continued to work on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D., often working alongside Captain America and S.T.R.I.K.E. teams led by Brock Rumlow. In late 2013, they thwarted a terrorist organization's attempted attack in Chicago using the stolen virus Zodiac. Zodiac's appearance upset Cap, as S.H.I.E.L.D. had claimed it had been destroyed while in their possession, but Widow assured him that it was in the public's best interest. Early the following year, Widow, Cap, and S.T.R.I.K.E. were assigned to a mission on the Lemurian Star, a satellite launch platform which had apparently been hijacked by pirates led by Georges Batroc. In truth, Widow knew that this was merely a cover for her true mission. Fury had staged the hijacking in order to allow Widow to covertly acquire data from the Star relating to Project Insight, the purpose of the satellites. In any case, among the pirates' hostages was S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jasper Sitwell. Cap and Rumlow freed the hostages and fought off the pirates while Widow was successfully able to extract the data. Cap was furious when he learned that Widow's objective was separate from his, believing that it endangered the mission, without realizing that the mission itself was essentially a farce.

Soon, Widow learned of an assassination attempt that had been made upon Fury. She arrived at the hospital where he was being operated on and observed alongside Cap and Maria Hill. Cap had seen the assailant and pursued him, but failed to capture him. Widow learned from them that Fury had been shot by a man with a powerful metal arm, and that the bullets were untraceable and Soviet in make. Widow quietly put these facts together and knew the shooter to be the legendary assassin known as the Winter Soldier. Fury flatlined, and Hill took possession of his body as the three said their goodbyes. Later, Romanoff noticed Rogers stash something in a vending machine as it was being maintenanced. She grabbed it and saw that it was a USB flash drive. Rogers returned to the hospital later, and Romanoff showed him that she had the drive. He confronted her, agitated: S.H.I.E.L.D. had been compromised, he was now a target, and he now had to be careful of whom to trust. He had been given the drive by Fury in his dying moments. She assured him they were on the same side, and told him her theory about the Winter Soldier. The two set their sights on tracking him down, and first, on learning what was on Fury's flash drive. They went incognito to a mall computer store to test the drive: plugging it in would instantly start a tracker program, giving S.H.I.E.L.D. their location. Widow couldn't access the files on the drive due to advanced protections, but did locate where they'd been made: Wheaton, New Jersey, at Camp Lehigh. The two narrowly escaped as S.T.R.I.K.E. homed in on their location, and commandeered a car to make their way to Jersey.

Following the file's coordinates, the two arrived at the camp where Rogers had been trained in the '40s. They broke into a conspicuous bunker, which turned out to be a concealed S.H.I.E.L.D. building. They found a further concealed elevator, leading to a room filled with computers deep underground. They activated a central computer: an A.I. that referred to itself as Arnim Zola, former Hydra scientist. Zola had died in 1972, and he preserved his brain in the vast array of databanks among which they were now standing. Zola informed them that after he'd been hired by S.H.I.E.L.D. after the war, he'd helped foster the resurgence of Hydra from within. For decades, they had secretly engineered countless catastrophies and wars, even orchestrating the deaths of Tony Stark's parents and now Nick Fury. Now, Project Insight was to be the culmination of Hydra's ultimate goal to liberate humanity of its freedom: the data that Romanoff had retrieved from the Lemurian Star was Zola's algorithm, needed to make Project Insight function. Zola was merely stalling for time, as Romanoff detected a missile coming their way. Rogers hid the two of them in a vent under the floor, and they narrowly survived as rubble came crumbling down around them. Rogers recovered and escaped with the unconscious Romanoff as S.T.R.I.K.E. surrounded the area.

The two took refuge at the home of Sam Wilson, a military veteran whom Rogers had recently befriended. Romanoff was distraught at the idea that she may have spent years following Hydra orders. The two deduced that Alexander Pierce was the only one with the authority to order the missile strike. Pierce was a member of the World Security Council and, with Fury's death, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s highest-ranking official. They also concluded that Jasper Sitwell, present on the Lemurian Star with Zola's algorithm, must be with Hydra. Wilson offered to help, showing them photos of the Falcon flying suit that he had used in combat. They covertly retrieved the suit from a military base nearby and hatched a plan to abduct and interrogate Sitwell. They soon got him onto a high rooftop and Widow shoved him off, causing him to fall a great height before Wilson—the Falcon—caught him in midair, afraid for his life. He revealed that Zola's algorithm was used to assess innumerable digital records of every person on Earth and determine threats to Hydra, both existing and in the future, by analyzing every detail of their past. Project Insight would then kill everyone chosen by the algorithm from the air. Cap, Widow, and Falcon took Sitwell captive with the plan to use him to get through DNA scans and shut down Insight's helicarriers—a risky plan, as Insight was set to launch in 16 hours.

As they drove down the highway with Sitwell in tow, the Winter Soldier landed on the top of their car, smashed Sitwell's window, and threw him into traffic, killing him. The Winter Soldier was soon accompanied by other Hydra soldiers, leading to a full-blown military combat in the streets of Washington as the underequipped heroes attempted to escape. Cap and Winter Soldier met in hand-to-hand combat, knocking off the latter's mask and revealing him to be Bucky Barnes. Cap said his name, but Barnes didn't recognize it. As he fled the scene, a legion of S.T.R.I.K.E. soldiers arrived and apprehended the heroes—a news chopper overhead prevented them from killing them outright. As they sat in the back of a S.T.R.I.K.E. van, one of the helmeted officers killed the other, revealing herself to be Maria Hill. The four escaped through the bottom of the van with a high-powered laser device, leaving S.T.R.I.K.E. none the wiser.

Hill led them to a nondescript building where Fury was laying in a hospital bed, greatly injured but alive. He had used a drug to slow his heart rate to 1 BPM, faking his death to throw Hydra off of his case. Fury and Hill presented their plan to stop Hydra's Project Insight: each of three helicarriers would have to have their targeting equipment replaced by S.H.I.E.L.D.'s own hardware. Fury wanted to reclaim Project Insight for S.H.I.E.L.D., but Rogers asserted that all of it—Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D.—had to be taken down to assure humanity's safety and freedom. Fury reluctantly agreed. Widow, Cap, Falcon, and Hill prepared for an infiltration of the Triskelion to enact their plan. As the other three infiltrated the building and took over its command center, Widow quietly disguised as a member of the World Security Council to sit in on a meeting with the other members and Pierce to observe the launch of Project Insight. Cap made an announcement over the P.A. informing all S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who would hear that Hydra was among them and to be wary. Pierce took the opportunity to call in a S.T.R.I.K.E. team and hold the Council members at gunpoint, but Widow fought back, taking down the S.T.R.I.K.E. forces and gaining the upperhand on Pierce as Nick Fury arrived via helipad.

Widow and Fury forced Pierce to use his retinal scan (combined with Fury's) to grant access to all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s decrypted files, which Widow proceeded to upload to the internet as a means of exposing S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secrets and effectively bringing an end to it and Hydra on the global stage. Pierce killed the rest of the World Security Council using a device that activated small weapons he had attached to them using benign-looking lapel pins, but Widow was able to deactivate hers and allow Fury to shoot and kill Pierce before he could escape. Meanwhile, Captain America and Falcon hijacked the helicarriers' targeting systems, aiming them at each other instead of the targets provided by Zola's algorithm. Widow and Fury escaped the Triskelion by helicopter as a damaged helicarrier crashed into the building. Project Insight was thus successfully sabotaged, and each of the heroes escaped alive. Romanoff later provided Rogers with a file on Bucky Barnes, allowing him to seek the truth about his brainwashed friend.