An Introduction to Black Widow
Peter was only 11 when the Avengers saved New York. He wasn’t anywhere near the battle – that was in Manhattan – and he had lived in Queens almost his whole life. Still, he heard Uncle Ben and Aunt May talking about whether they should leave, just in case they didn’t win. Peter didn’t want to leave though, his eyes were glued to their little television, avidly watching what little news coverage there was. All his favourite superheroes were there! Iron Man, Captain America, and even the Hulk! Peter thought he was cooler when he was Dr Banner, but the Hulk was pretty interesting too. Thor was there too, but Peter didn’t really know anything about him except what he had learned in the Norse Mythology unit at school last year. There were two other superheroes that Peter didn’t know. One was called Hawkeye and one was called the Black Widow. There wasn’t really much footage of Hawkeye, the reporters had said he was on top the skyscrapers shooting the aliens with arrows. Peter thought that was pretty silly, what good were arrows against giant robot aliens? The Black Widow was interesting to him though. She was the only girl on the team, and she was just a person as far as Peter could tell. She didn’t have a suit like Iron Man, and she wasn’t super strong like Captain America. Nor could she turn into a giant green monster or summon lightning. Peter thought she must be highly trained to be able to keep up with all the other superheroes.
“Peter, come away from the TV. I don’t want you watching all of that.”
“But Uncle Ben! There’s new superheroes, look she’s so cool!”
Peter turned his eyes back to the screen where the cameraman had just caught Captain America launching Black Widow into the air from his shield. Peter’s eyes grew wide as she did a flip mid-air and landed on one of the aliens flying past, disappearing from the camera’s view.
“Who do you think she is? I wanna be just like her! She’s got all these cool moves and she can keep up with Iron Man and Captain America even though she only has two guns, and these cool taser things. Where do you think she came from Uncle Ben?”
“I have no idea, Pete. Maybe Tony Stark will hold a press conference afterwards and we can find out. For now, come and eat dinner. And yes, we can leave the TV on while we eat.”
Peter sat in at a different chair than usual, so he could still watch the action on the TV. He kept his eyes peeled for any sign of Black Widow. He could watch Iron Man, but Black Widow was much more interesting to him at the moment. He thought it was so cool that a non-enhanced person was fighting with the superheroes of Peter’s childhood. If she could do it, if she could defend New York, if she could keep getting up after being knocked down by something bigger and stronger than her, that meant Peter could do it too.