Brutasha Fiesta: Natasha Being Dominant

Avengers: Age of Ultron is a great movie. One of the big controversies of the film is the romance between Bruce Banner/The Hulk and Natasha Romanov/Black Widow. Some people seem to misunderstand important aspects of the relationship and so cry things like sexism.

As a Brutasha shipper, thank you fanfic writer whose name I can't remember, I don't see a lot of the things that others seem to point out. Though the only thing that I have to complain about is the fact that we get their relationship after it's been established so people who didn't ship Brutasha before thought it was a ship that came out of nowhere. Besides easing us into the relationship, one big thing that attracted me to the ship was Natasha overcoming her fear. So I was disappointed I didn't get to see that on screen.

Over the course of four blog posts I will show you some analysis of the pairing that I think many people have misinterpreted.

Starting off I will prove that Natasha isn't some 'just a romantic interest' now that she's in a relationship and that it's her that is the more powerful of the two.

One thing I loathe happening is that when a woman gets a love interest it's assumed that she now has no other defining characteristics. Yes, you can make a woman whose only purpose is to be a love interest but that isn't always the case.

Melanie Stryder from The Host by Stephenie Meyer is such a case. Melanie has no defining characteristics besides being in love and being admired by everyone. And if you want to argue about that, tell me when the plot is consistent surrounding her. Such as a paranoid uncle (sorry, Jeb) suddenly not being a paranoid when she is involved. The fact that two men are after her. But talking about the relationship square in that book would take up too much time here.

But Natasha doesn't have that problem. She is still witty and will kick your ass if the mission involves that. She is there in the opening fight sequence and her character even gets a little development boost (but I'll expand on that next post of Brutasha Fiesta).

Her entire story in Age of Ultron does not involve her relationship. She is made to face her own fears and that doesn't always involve Bruce.

Nor is she a helpless character. She does get captured but it's not by an average villain, it's by Ultron! And she doesn't get captured because she was weak. She gets captured because she was risking her all and shit happened. It is also the first time she gets captured onscreen in the MCU, first Avengers movie doesn't count as she was clearly in control of that entire situation, and her getting captured every movie would start to wear on me.

Another thing people have a problem with is Natasha being the lesser of the two. Which is far from true. Even Mark Ruffalo, the actor who plays Bruce, has said that he isn't the strongest member of the ship. That Bruce depends on Natasha.

Let's look at the strength that can easily be told that she has over Bruce: She can control his transformations.

That's something Bruce can't do, at least not to the extent Natasha is able to. It is her duty in the group to turn the Hulk back to Bruce after a mission. This is something that can only be achieved if a deep emotional connection is formed between Bruce and another character.

Bruce is able to not kill Betty Ross when he's in Hulk form and he is able to save Tony while in Hulk form during the end of the first Avengers movie. Both people to him meant something more.

So for Natasha to be able to reverse Bruce's transformation there must have been something there. My own little headcanon is that Natasha's ability to reverse Bruce's transformation is what made him feel even more for a woman he was already beginning to love.

This makes Bruce the submissive in the relationship while Natasha holds great control over him.
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Brutasha Fiesta