Age of Ultron

[melannen]

So, I have a WIP I'm working on that's about toddler Natasha and the Winter Soldier having to go into deep cover as uncle and niece.

Currently I'm using a combo of movie canon and the bits of comics/fanon backstory I like and whatever I feel like.

Poll #16662 to those of you who have seen AoU

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 50

View Respondents

Should I:

View Answers

Watch AoU to incorporate new Natasha canon before I go any farther
0 (0.0%)

Pretend very hard that AoU doesn't exist and keep going as I am
13 (26.0%)

It doesn't matter that much it's unlikely anything in AoU will be worth changing your story for
27 (54.0%)

Watch AoU because there might be interesting stuff to incorporate but assume the story will be going AU from movie canon
9 (18.0%)

quit the wip for a couple years and see what the next cap movie ignores/retcons
1 (2.0%)

(try to avoid massive spoilers in comments?)

Comments

[dhampyresa]

Depending on what your fic involves, it's possible that you might diverge slightly from onscreen canon.

[melannen]

Nothing that would dramatically contradict the bare premise "Natasha was already working with/in a spy agency when she was 3-4 years old", then? (That's mostly what I was worried about, I was pretty vague about the rest of her circumstances.)

[dhampyresa]

Nope. On that front you're good.

[stellar_dust]

Whoever cast james spader is a friggin genius, that is all.

[melannen]

That seems to apply to every role I've seen him in though (which is admittedly a limited number of roles.)

[stellar_dust]

All the stuff about Natasha's past is super vague as to time, unless a hint/easteregg went by so fast I missed it. Did you watch Agent Carter? There was more details about MCU-Red Room in that show than in AoU.

[melannen]

I haven't yet, but I did not attempt to stay spoiler-free, and I think I'm going to not worry about it, as whenever-the-heck this is set, it's at least a decade or so off from Agent Carter, so everything could've changed.

[fay_e]

I 110% want to see this fic, it even fits in when Natasha was born!

[melannen]

Does AoU confirm or deny Zola's date for her? I was keeping the year it was set sorta vague, partly because of that, partly because it was an excuse to be lazy about research. (writing from the close POV of a four-year-old helps with that, I was v. unsure as to what decade it was when I was four.)

[fay_e]

Age wise we get about as many references as we do in Avengers (read: none). Whatever we learned about the Red Room in AoU isn't anything a four year old should be worried about. Unless a four year old is afraid of ballet lessons.

I don't recall what decade it was when I was four, but I remember cassette tapes being a big thing for me because I used to record the stories I acted out with toys.

[melannen]

When I was that age I was really excited about record players and reel-to-reel tapes, but that makes me sound a lot older than I am because there were plenty of cassettes around, it's just that all my parents' fun old music was on those, and they were way more fun. And I'm pretty sure I had no concept that the records were old and the cassettes were new.

[fay_e]

Yeah, the first CD I remember owning was a Frank Sinatra CD, so definitely it's more about what catches the fancy than the technology used to access it.

... Though it terrifies me that there are kids who don't know what floppy disks are. That was only 15 years ago!

[brownbetty]

Pretty sure there's nothing AOU that impinges either on Natasha's age, or her training pre-teen, or even, I think, although someone with more specific historical knowledge may contradict me, what time period she was trained in.

[melannen]

Oh good, I think I don't have anything much to worry about then, thanks!

[zellieh]

I don't think you'd need to change your story for it, because it doesn't change the facts for baby Natasha, but the reveal of the Red Room's ruthlessness towards Natasha was a big deal for the audience: you could hear people respond to it with a few gasps.

If you imagine the program as established before Natasha arrived, then this graduation ceremony thing might have happened to others before her, and would be something the adults would know, and might talk about. If you imagine Natasha as one of the first kids in a new program, then this might not even have been decided yet. Either way, the film didn't give any specific places or dates, so.

It's a background detail that most readers will know. It won't affect your story, but it might be cool to mention (or not; there'll be lots of references in fic about adult!Natasha.)

[melannen]

I've been assuming that the Red Room is 100% awful, and that toddler Natasha doesn't have the context to understand that it is awful because a toddler believes that however things are done at home is how all things are done everywhere - to the extent this story has an arc beyond "the Winter Soldier carrying a small girl on his shoulders a lot", it's Winter Soldier slowly realizing how awful his world is by observing what Baby Natasha takes for granted, and knowing deeper than conscious memory that four-year-olds should not be like her.

er. I mean adorable fluff.

[zellieh]

Angsty fluff is the best fluff. But Winter Soldier Bucky + Baby Natasha *on his shoulders*? I think I like this fic already. :)

But if you want Winter Soldier to realise how awful things are, this might actually be a thing that could come up when talking to a toddler, as one of those things that Natasha would be blase about that normal people would literally jawdrop at.

I'm trying not to spoil anyone in the comments, but I could tell you in DM if you want to know?

[melannen]

Well, my base level of fuckedness for both of them is pretty high. So far the WS has failed to jawdrop at her coldbloodedly executing an enemy agent, that's business as usual for him at this point, so I doubt he'd care about whatever shocking revelation Whedon put in the movie about her training; it's the little ways in which she doesn't know how to be a child that's weirding him out, especially since he has to teach her to pass as one.