There’s not a whole lot of room for romance when you’re an Avenger, but Bruce Banner and Natasha Romanoff nevertheless found time to develop a connection back in 2015’s Age of Ultron. It was an interesting idea to introduce, but the move was crucified at the time by vocal Marvel fans who disliked how their attraction came out of left field and was also not something drawn from the comics. It’s perhaps not surprising, then, that the relationship was hardly addressed in Avengers: Infinity War, when the two reconnected after years apart.
After all, when Black Widow and Banner see each other from across the room, it’s more like the awkwardness you would get from meeting an ex instead of star-crossed lovers finally being reunited. Of course, both characters are still alive by the end of the film, so it’s possible that their relationship will be properly explored in Avengers 4, but it doesn’t seem likely given recent comments from co-director Joe Russo.
Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast earlier this week, the filmmaker explained the reason that they didn’t really dwell on Brutasha in Infinity War. According to him, it’s quite simple, with Russo saying that “there’s a sort of unspoken truth so that there’s no need for a spoken resolution.” Makes sense, right?
Seeing as most fans aren’t into this odd relationship anyways, we don’t think too many people are crying out about the pair’s reunion not getting much of the spotlight. And though there is still Avengers 4 coming up, as we said above, it’s unlikely that the Russos will focus much on this particular aspect of the story.
After all, there’s a whole lot else that needs to be addressed in next year’s sequel. Primarily, how are Earth’s Mightiest Heroes going to defeat Thanos and bring back all their friends who died when the Mad Titan snapped his fingers? From what we gather, a bit of time travel is probably going to be involved, but chalk that up as speculation for now, as Marvel’s keeping any and all plot details tightly under wraps.
For the moment, all we know for certain is that what we saw in Avengers: Infinity War is likely it for Brutasha, and we can’t say we’re upset about that.
