Natalia Romanova (Earth-199999)

===Red Ledger=== Natalia Romanova was born in 1984,[1]  in Stalingrad, Russian SFSR, USSR and went on to become a world-class spy. She reportedly began training towards the life of an assassin when she was just a child, and her ruthless effectiveness in later years earned her the codename, "Black Widow."

This life underwent a dramatic change when she was targeted for assassination herself, and the agent sent to kill her was the similarly gifted soldier, Clinton Barton. Instead of killing her, Barton spared her life and the pair developed a lasting partnership from that moment on. Following Barton, the Black Widow was drawn into a new life as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Her past, however, would remain a touchy subject for her, and Widow tried to start a new life going by the name "Natasha Romanoff."[2]

During a mission to protect a Nigerian scientist, Romanoff was confronted by the ruthless Winter Soldier, who eliminated his target by literally shooting through Romanoff when she tried to shield him, leaving a small scar on her hip.[1]

Stark Industries
Romanoff later drew an assignment working in the Stark Industries Legal Department under the pseudonym of Natalie Rushman. The ulterior motive was for her to keep an eye onTony Stark after he signed his company over to Pepper Potts. In reality, Romanoff had been assigned to assess whether he was suitable for a plan to bring together a group of people with unparalleled talents. Stark ran a search on her and discovered that she was fluent in French, Russian, Latin; and had done some modeling in Japan at some point. Romanoff became Tony's new assistant while he was in Monaco, then when she flirted with him at his birthday party he started to get suspicious about where she had come from.

Working With Iron Man
Agent Romanoff posing as "Natalie Rushman". She arrived at a meeting Nick Fury was having with Tony Stark in Randy's Donuts, where Fury revealed her true name and affiliation. Natasha, along with Fury and Phil Coulson, went to Tony's house and she was told by Fury that she was to remain in position as an assistant. Later at Stark Industries, while Tony was visiting Pepper Potts, Natasha walked in and requested for Potts to sign something. When Potts left, Tony started to grill Natasha and told her that he found it amazing that she does what she does. When Tony claimed that she could not speak other languages, Natasha replied in Latin, then repeated herself in English, telling him that he could, "Either get, or be collected."

Romanoff attended the next Stark Expo, where Justin Hammer of Hammer Industries, unveiled his new Hammer drones and the War Machine armor worn by James Rhodes. Stark also arrived uninvited in his new and improved Iron Man armor to warn Rhodes about an impending attack from Ivan Vanko. It was then that Vanko surprised everyone by remotely gaining control of both the Hammer drones and the War Machine armor. While Stark led the immediate threat of the machines away from the expo, Potts and Romanoff confronted Hammer demanding to know Vanko's location. Romanoff put him in a neck lock and broke one of his glasses' lenses to force his confession. She then had Happy Hogan drive her to the nearest Hammer Industries facility, where Vanko was controlling the drones. Romanoff takes on Justin Hammer's security forces. Once at the site, Romanoff left Happy to deal with a lone security guard while she penetrated deep into the facility, systematically disabling many more of the security force. Vanko had already abandoned his control systems and left by the time Romanoff found them. She quickly set about restoring control of the War Machine armor to Rhodes and was also able to radio tactical data, initially warning Rhodes and Stark of an incoming wave of drones, and finally another armored battlesuit, this one worn by Vanko.[3]  She then proceeded to steal Hammer's development projects and fled before the police came to the facility, just as it exploded.[4]

The Big Guy
Natasha was assigned to a new mission: trail the runaway scientist, Bruce Banner, because the agent previously assigned to the case, Jasper Sitwell, had been redeployed to Puente Antiguo. She first came across him during the military siege at Culver University, when he became the Hulk right before her. Fury ordered her not to let General Ross take the Hulk away, but his own destructive force prevented her from doing anything more than report on his fight with Emil Blonsky.[5]

<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">She later headed to Harlem, New York, to continue S.H.I.E.L.D.'s attempts to prevent Banner from being taken by the military, but arrived too late. Fury sent her to meet Dr. Samuel Sterns and make sure Banner left nothing he could work with. After an encounter with the Abomination (Blonsky's new monstrous form), she headed to Sterns' lab where she found him trapped. His head had become grotesquely deformed and he began raving, going on to ask Natasha to join him, but she rejected his offer by shooting his kneecap.

<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">Having caught a glimpse of the Hulk's highly destructive battle with the Abomination in the distance, she reported to Fury that the entire situation involving not only the Hulk, but also Tony Stark's inventions and the Asgardians' coming has become too much for S.H.I.E.L.D. to handle as it was.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Marvel:_The_Avengers_Prelude:_Fury.27s_Big_Week_Vol_1_4_5-0">[6]

<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">While on assignment, in the middle of interrogating Georgi Luchkov, Romanoff received a call from Agent Coulson informing her of her next mission. She was to approach Banner, and enlist his aid in locating theTesseract, a dangerous object that had fallen into the wrong hands. Even though the thought of Banner's immensely powerful alter ago terrified her, Romanoff carried out the assignment with aplomb and soon had Banner on board.

Wading Into A War
<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">Her next assignment was to apprehend Loki, the Asgardian responsible for both the theft of the Tesseract and the corruption of Agent Barton. The mission was successful, although it took the combined skills of Steve Rogers, Tony Stark in his Iron Man armor, and Natasha herself at the gun controls of a S.H.I.E.L.D. jet, to subdue him. On the return trip they also encountered Loki's brother Thor, who had designs on Loki's capture of his own.

<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">Natasha's skills as an interrogator made her a prime choice for extracting information from Loki once S.H.I.E.L.D. had him in custody. She adeptly tricked the trickster into revealing valuable information, although his manipulative responses had also hit their mark, and Romanoff became increasingly obsessive about finding restitution for her past. Foremost in these thoughts was her need to wrest Agent Barton from Loki's control, but she found that she didn't have to search. Instead, he found her. Barton, leading a commando team against the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, caused an explosion that collapsed part of the ceiling on Romanoff and Banner. This triggered Banner's transformation into the Hulk and rapidly escalated the problem of enemy infiltration to a chaotic two-front war, with Romanoff barely escaping the Hulk's ferocity with her life. During the chaos she also encountered Agent Barton, and engaged him in a lengthy brawling duel that only ended when blows to his head knocked him unconscious.

Battle of New York
<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">Loki's escape presented a fresh problem for the survivors of the attack. Romanoff attended to her old partner while others counted their losses, but she was quick to join them once they had resolved to go on the offensive. Following Loki to Manhattan, Romanoff and the others were confronted by the sight of a huge dimensional rift above the city. Loki's army, a horde of Chitauri warriors, came pouring through and Romanoff found herself again battling in close quarters, this time against an alien foe bent on world domination. <span style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">The martial arts skills and small arms of the Black Widow were ideal for battling the Chitauri in the streets, and when her own weaponry was spent, she made good use of Chitauri armaments turned on their previous owners. Eventually she captured one of their aircraft and used it to reach the top of  Stark Tower<span style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">where she was instrumental in dealing with the device that held the portal open, thus sealing the rift and barring the amassed forces still waiting to pass through.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;color:rgb(58,58,58);">When the battle was over, Romanoff gathered with the others to see off Thor and the captive Loki. The threat had been neutralized and for a time the world would have little need of its protectors. The others went their separate ways, while Romanoff and Barton returned to S.H.I.E.L.D.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Marvel.27s_The_Avengers_1-1">[2]

Spies & Soldiers
<p class="caption" style="color:rgb(127,127,127);">Captain America and Black Widow <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">Black Widow became a frequent comrade-in-arms of Captain America when they were assigned on missions together. During one rescue mission of a hijacked S.H.I.E.L.D. ship, Nick Fury assigned Black Widow a secret side task to retrieve confidential protected S.H.I.E.L.D. files in a flash drive. The data was more sensitive than she could have guessed, and once it was handed over to Fury he became the target of an assassin. When Romanoff heard that Fury had been gunned down she went to the hospital to keep vigil, and watched helplessly as he was declared dead. Based on Steve's description of the shooter, she identified the killer as the Winter Soldier.

<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">Steve became a fugitive from S.H.I.E.L.D. under the orders of Alexander Pierce after hiding details of Fury's death, and Natasha joined him to help him retrieve the confidential files from the flash drive, which Fury had already given to Rogers. Natasha tried to hack the protected files but could only discover the location from where they were created, Camp Lehigh.

The Hydra Conspiracy
<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">There, Steve and Natasha discovered a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. base where the consciousness of Arnim Zolarevealed that after World War II, he had been recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D., and that he and other German scientists had furthered Hydra's plans for world domination through numerous projects, including the infiltration and influence of S.H.I.E.L.D. Romanoff interrupted Zola's lengthy exposition of Hydra's activities when her PDA alerted her to an incoming missile. She and Rogers narrowly escaped the resulting blast, and then left the scene before S.H.I.E.L.D. could find them. <p class="caption" style="color:rgb(127,127,127);">On the run from S.H.I.E.L.D. <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">The following day, Steve and Natasha sought help from Sam Wilson, who they then pulled into their circle of allies by recovering a flight-exoskeleton for him. The trio then captured and interrogated Jasper Sitwell to find out about the conspiracy festering within S.H.I.E.L.D. Under pressure, Sitwell revealed his allegiance to Hydra and that Hydra planned to use Project Insight to massacre the millions of people identified as threats to Hydra's new world order.

Taking Down S.H.I.E.L.D.
<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">Steve, Sam and Natasha were later attacked by the Winter Soldier and team of Hydra double agents. Natasha suffered a bullet wound in her shoulder while trying to elude the Winter Soldier, and Steve was left stunned by the revelation that the Winter Soldier was his old friend Bucky. With the fight taken out of them, the three heroes were easily captured by S.H.I.E.L.D., but while being transported under guard they were rescued by a disguised Maria Hill, who brought them to a hideout where Nick Fury was alive and recuperating. Fury revealed a plan to prevent Pierce from launching Project Insight, involving the replacement of the controller chip of each one of the helicarriers.

<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">Natasha infiltrated the Triskelion disguised as Councilwoman Hawley of the World Security Council, and was taken hostage with the other councillors by Pierce as soon as Captain America revealed over the public address system the truth about Hydra controlling S.H.I.E.L.D., and Pierce being their leader. But Black Widow dropped her cover and subdued Pierce. She then revealed Nick Fury's survival, and forced Pierce to help Fury release the secrets of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra to the world, as top-level two agents were required to do so. As the files were being uploaded, Pierce activated devices in the security badges of the rest of the Security Council, which killed them. He then attempted to use Natasha for leverage to escape, but she used a micro-EMP device on herself, disabling the badge, and giving time for Fury to shoot Pierce, killing him. The two then escaped the Triskelion in a helicopter to rescue, also rescuing Sam when a helicarrier crashed into the building. <p class="caption" style="color:rgb(127,127,127);">No more aliases

Going Off The Grid
<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">Natasha later appeared before a Senate subcommittee, in which she defended the dismantling of S.H.I.E.L.D. When asked by military officials as to why they shouldn't imprison her for the newly-revealed crimes that she had committed against the U.S., she responded that people like her were needed to defend the world.

<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">She later approached Fury's "grave" to say goodbye to Steve, stating that with all of her covers blown, she had to find a new identity. She encouraged him to romantically pursue Agent 13, whom she identifies Sharon Carter before passing him a dossier from the Ukraine on the Winter Soldier.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Captain_America:_The_Winter_Soldier_0-2">[1]