PLAYER NAME: sel
CONTACT: iothe or mii#9142 on discord!
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: mod & player referral, i promise i belong here and i bring starbucks!

CHARACTER: Natasha Romanova
CANON: Marvel Cinematic Universe
CANON POINT: Immediately post time of death in Endgame.

BACKGROUND: Wiki Link

ABILITIES | POWERS:

⧗ Expert martial artist
⧗ Expert in acrobatics
⧗ Highly skilled in espionage, stealth, disguise
⧗ Highly skilled in interrogation
⧗ Above average strength (though just below the line of "super human")
⧗ Above average intelligence
⧗ Expert hacker (this likely will not matter in the setting, so expect it to be nerfed entirely)
⧗ Multilingual (Russian, English, French, German, Chinese, Italian, Vietnamese, Latin, Norwegian, Japanese, and others) - this will either be moot entirely in game beyond specific characters or be mostly irrelevant.

PERSONALITY:

At her current point in canon, Natasha has been through A Lot. She's long since been pulled out of her comfort zone as spy and assassin, into the lime light and geopoliticking of being an Avenger. She's embraced working on a team, come to see them as the closest thing she has to a family, stuck around long enough to see them fall to pieces, reunited with the second-closest thing she ever had to a family including her sister, and then had her and billions of other beings snatched about by evil Barney with a god complex (ok, he is a literal god). By the time we see her in Endgame, she's had five long years to think about what is really important to her, what really matters — and it comes to a head in her sacrifice for the Soul Stone on Vormir.

Natasha will do anything for her friends and found family - and she does try to understand others, even if she can't fully commit to their perspective. She's shown as a kind voice for the Avengers on numerous occasions including comforting Tony Stark the night of his birthday when he was dying of poisoning from his arc reactor (with not-so-great effect) and convincing Clint Barton not to blame himself for the death of SHIELD agents at his hands after his manipulation and possession by Loki. She genuinely mourns for Nick Fury after his "death" at the hands of the Winter Soldier, and frequently covers her friends during battle or goes to their aid if they're injured (Clint, often, and protecting Banner). During Age of Ultron, she stays behind with Steve Rogers to help him evacuate Novi Grad despite also trying to convince him to consider other options. During Endgame, she lobbies for trying to undo the Snap, insisting that they owe it to everyone who died to try. Her greatest act of compassion is sacrificing herself to retrieve the Soul Stone give the Avengers a chance of undoing the carnage of the Snap, with no guarantee that they would be successful.

That said, Natasha is still a practiced liar, assassin, and spy — manipulation comes with the territory. She has not hesitated to adopt certain identities or personas in order to meet her (or her employer's) needs, whatever those happen to be at the time. The ability to manipulate and trick others was taught to her at an extremely young age in the Red Room program. As a child, she went undercover as the child of Alexei Shostakov and Melina Vostokoff during their time in America in order to allow them to infiltrate and destroy the North Institute. In other canon appearances, she’s served as an admin assistant for Pepper Potts, pretended to get caught in order to interrogate a smuggling ring, and feigned hurt and fear in order to determine Loki’s true goal to provoke the Hulk. While she's (now) got a moral compass to match her manipulations, her motives are not always apparent to those around her and she leans heavily into the spy and assassin narrative when it suits her, all too happy to add to her untrustworthiness if it means meeting her own agenda.

She's also a highly logical person with an extreme ability to compartmentalize. Upon facing a Loki-brainwashed Clint Barton, she doesn’t show any sort of leniency, not even attempting to bargain with him, launching straight into physical confrontation. It’s shown in canon that during that time she was also extremely worried about Clint as her partner on Strike Team Delta, but she considers her emotions as a weakness and something to be put away and dealt with at a later date. This is a pattern repeated often in canon after Nick Fury's "death" at the hands of the Winter Soldier, the battle between the Avengers during Civil War, and upon finding out the Red Rooms are still active. When emotions are high, she tucks them away for the good of the mission... but they do eventually come back. At her current time in canon, this compartmentalization is breaking down and more and more of her true feelings leak through — she cries in front of Steve Rogers and shows obvious and clear concern for Clint when he tests the time machine. It's not all doom and gloom, though! Prior to her death we see her cracking a few jokes, laughing, and hugging her friends close.

Natasha may be able to compartmentalize her emotions, but she can't vanish them completely. She carries a lot of guilt for her past - whether it's her life as a child assassin working for the KGB, prior missions gone wrong, or even the wrongs that the Avengers have committed while trying to do right. The guilt becomes a distraction, and while it drives her often to do the "right" thing, it also has Natasha believing she's not entirely worthy of the affection or care of others, that she has a ledger she is permanently trying to balance (if it's even possible), and to prioritize the lives & well-fare of those around her. She's horrified to learn that the Red Rooms are still active, torn up by guilt that Antonia Dreykov is still alive and disfigured/disabled by the mission that failed to kill her. Repeatedly in canon she refers to herself as "unmade," "a monster," and untrustworthy. She doesn't see a life for herself outside of the Avengers, even when the original Avengers move on and disband after the Snap, and continues to atone for her misdeeds. This likely plays into her decision to sacrifice herself for the Soul Stone — in addition to Clint Barton being her best friend, the first person to trust her in SHIELD, and her partner, he also has a family and a life ahead of him, and more potential than Natasha could see in herself.

SAMPLE: (making an assumption of what the arrival scenario might be, just for the sake of a sample! feel free to disregard if i stomped on how things really work in game, i’ll rewrite fresh for an intro if accepted!)

( the last thing she concretely remembers is the fall. wind rushing past her body, the look of anguish on clint’s face, the lingering warmth of his hand in hers. she doesn’t remember the inevitable crash, the ground coming up to meet her — and that’s probably all for the better. it’s the right choice (isn’t it?); what’s one life in exchange for billions? she’s sorry clint had to see it happen, maybe. sorry that she won’t be able to see this through but…

whatever it takes. then there’s darkness.

when natasha comes to, she’s confused. there’s cool, hard ground underneath her; that makes sense. did she survive, somehow? impossible, no one could live through a fall like that, especially not a normal human. stranger still, there are voices close to her. vormir had been empty, desolate. she twitches an arm, to test that the limb still moves — it does. moves a toe in her boot, just to be sure. nothing big, nothing that could be noticeable by whoever it is nearby.

they’ll be waking up soon, a voice drawls, in a language she recognizes. natasha dares to open her eyes, just a peek through her lashes. she’s .. somewhere. a castle? tied up, her arms behind her back, body oddly fine for the fall she knew she took. there’s a group of men around a fire, looking at each other, talking with the same loud voice that all men use when they don’t think they can be or don’t care if they are overheard. this group seems stupider than the rest.

shifting minutely, slowly, carefully, she tries to survey some other lumps on the ground near her. other bodies, other people. she can tell by the rise and fall of their bodies that they’re alive, incapacitated in much the same way she is or was. natasha grits her teeth, letting her eyes fall shut again, forcing herself to think. if this is still vormir, there’s still a chance clint is on the planet. she can get back home, see this through…

she can’t think about the possibility that she’s somewhere else entirely.

natasha can feel a rock digging into her side. sharp enough to cut the ropes on her wrists? worth a try. whoever these men are, she’s not staying long enough to find out. once she’s free, she’ll have a short window of time to try and run; she’ll have to locate the door, knock down whoever it is who gets in her way, and then … who knew what was beyond the door? but if she didn’t try…

shifting, she works the rock into her hands, begin sawing away at the ropes, thankful that she’d been laid with her hands to the opposite side of the men. she keeps an eye on them through her lashes, waiting for one of them to glance her way, to notice she’s awake or moving.

she’s got to try this, got to get back. whatever it takes, right? )

INVENTORY:

⧗ Widow's Bite - bracelets that discharge electrical pulses and can electrocute others during hand-to-hand combat. (Potential downside: these could be difficult to repair or recharge in the game setting should anything happen to them)
⧗ Assorted knives on her person - one in each ankle sheath, one strapped to the inside of her left wrist.
⧗ Two Glock-26s - one with no ammunition, one with three shots left. (Nerf: I’m imagining it to be difficult to impossible to find bullets in the setting, and/or these can be confiscated/taken upon arrival).

NOTES: no particular accommodations! thank you!

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? plot-heavy, please!