"You're not the only monster"
CW: for Age of Ultron spoilers, hysterectomy, infertility, self-harm, depression, body-image, and my personal feelings about children etc.
So, that bit in Age of Ultron where Natasha reveals that she was sterilised by the Red Room. As you can perhaps imagine, I had quite a strong reaction to that moment. Plus the her use of "monster" so soon afterwards (in my mind the two are definitely linked).
For one brief moment I was so happy that there was going to be a superheroine like me. Black Widow is living a similar experience to me? How amazing!
And then....and then it wasn't.
I know that our experiences are different (my hysterectomy was from choice*, and it isn't explained what operation exactly she had), but I am utterly furious with how it was presented and dealt with.
I am not angry that she is grieving for the loss of her choice to bear children, and I am absolutely not angry that she might now think of herself as a monster because of it. If she is sad, that's fine. If it helps her to think like that, that's fine.
(* it sometimes doesn’t feel like much of a choice, as the recommended treatments did not work, no one seems to be in a hurry to find a cure, and the thought of a life so full of pain and fear was not an attractive one. I am not exaggerating when I say that my hysterectomy saved my life)
What I am angry about is how it was only discussed in terms of what she doesn't/can't have, and how she then is denied everything she wanted. No freedom from her job, no relationship with the person that she wanted, who looked like she feels, not even a niece named after her. Nothing.
On the one hand I want to go looking for fic about it because of clever writers being able to re-frame it in a way that empowers her, and I want to see her have to deal with the things that I have to.
I want to see Natasha having to deal with HRT and hot flushes, and Tony and Bruce coming up with something to help her. I want to see Natasha feeling trapped by her body and knowing that it's not going to change unless she gets really hurt or when it starts to fail. I want to see Natasha coldly furious in the SHIELD offices, having to smile at every baby shower and maternity leave (because how could you be angry at other people's good news? What sort of horrible monster are you?). I want to see her despairing and feeling so, so completely lost, adrift and written out of every single narrative of life in media...
I want to see her take ownership of being a monster, a freak, an anomaly amongst women. I want to see her smile as her targets beg for their lives, because they have children, and then kill them. I want to see her turn her sexuality into a weapon, something that exists only for her own purpose and pleasure.
But I also don't want to, because there will also be fics where she's forever sad about it, or magical fix-it fics where babies solve everything.
And I don't know what to do.
Thank you for reading.