When I initially heard this quote in the trailer, I thought that Steve was referring to all of the Avengers and, while to some extent, he may have - after having seen the movie, it’s clear that he was specifically referring to himself and Natasha. And he’s right. He was never able to move past the life he felt that he missed out on with Peggy Carter, and Natasha was never truly able to move past the fact that she felt as though she was an irredeemable monster.

Don’t get me wrong, Natasha is, without a doubt, a hero. She’s just as much an Avenger as any of the other characters I’ll be dissecting over the next few articles – but she’s never been in the spotlight in any way that’s positive. Not like Iron Man, or Captain America, or Thor, or – now – even the Hulk. Her most public appearance was at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier wherein she dealt with the public fallout of purging all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s (or, rather, Hydra’s) information onto the internet. While the act itself – claiming responsibility for what she had done in the past - was heroic in its own way, the backlash she received for the act depicted her as more of a criminal than anything else.

Furthermore, the most important aspect of Natasha’s story is her relationship with Bruce. While I wasn’t necessarily a proponent of their budding romance in Avengers: Age of Ultron, I did feel that the relationship seemingly came out of nowhere. Yes, she was the one to recruit him in the first Avengers film and they shared a “unique” moment together when he “hulked out” and tried to kill her, but other than those two scenes – which couldn’t have been farther from “romantic” – the two never seemed to be anything more than teammates.

But, as with real life, feelings can catch you by surprise and the two seemed to just “click.” While as opposite as can be in term of their personalities, they bonded over the fact that they were each “monsters” – he, a man who transformed into a literal beast, and she, a woman who felt that her willingness to accept her role as a Black Widow made her just as monstrous. The two found comfort in the fact that, even with all their baggage, they could accept each other for who they were; they could see past the bad and acknowledge the good in each other. It was perfect - two broken people who, with each other’s help, tried to put themselves back together.

But then, he went and got whole all by himself. He not only managed to tame the monster within, he was actually able to fully embrace it and transform his identify as the Hulk into something that genuinely benefited society – the type of individual that children could run up to and ask for an autograph or a selfie. Hulk – or, rather, Bruce – was no longer a monster; he was a bonafide superhero.

However, the same couldn’t be said for Natasha. Instead of embracing her role as a camera ready superhero, she became more reclusive and hid within the confines of Avengers HQ, trying her best to make up for the fact that she wasn’t able to stop Thanos, that she wasn’t able to save Clint, and that she wasn’t yet “whole” enough to be with the new Bruce.

But then, she found a way.

She tracked down Clint and managed to pull him out of the abyss that had slowly been consuming him over the last five years; she, alongside the other Avengers, devised a plan to seek out the Infinity Stones and bring everyone back; but, most importantly, she found a way to give genuine meaning to her life – by offering it up to bring back trillions of lives – and, even more importantly, bring back her best friends family.

Black Widow wasn’t the strongest Avenger; she wasn’t the most intelligent; nor did she have any specific skills that made her absolutely irreplaceable on the team. I say all of this with no disrespect – as I said before, she was, without a doubt, as much an Avenger as anyone else - but out of all the Avengers, she brought the least to the table. However, with this act, she was able to do what no other Avenger could – give them access to the Infinity Stone that was (without a doubt) the most difficult to obtain. And, that’s pretty damn impressive.