Black Widow spoilers follow.
We were promised by Scarlett Johansson that Black Widow would finally reveal what happened in Budapest – and so it proved.
In case you need a refresher, it was in The Avengers that we realized Natasha Romanoff (Johansson) and Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) had a shared history. In the climactic battle, Natasha told Clint that it was “just like Budapest all over again”, which Clint didn’t quite agree with.
Budapest was referred to again in Avengers: Endgame as the duo head to Vormir (RIP Natasha). According to Johansson, it was initially a “throwaway line” that gave fans something to speculate about.
However, that speculation is now at an end as Black Widow solves this long-running MCU mystery and reveals just what happened in Budapest. Spoilers are ahead though, so look away now if you haven’t seen the movie yet.
As speculated before, the Budapest incident was linked to the Red Room, General Dreykov (Ray Winstone) and Natasha’s defection to SHIELD.
It’s revealed that at an unspecified time in her past, Natasha rigged bombs with Clint at a hotel in Budapest where Dreykov was expected to be staying. Her assassination of Dreykov was the final part of her defection to SHIELD, but she had to do something pretty dark to achieve it.
In order to know that Dreykov was definitely in the building, they kept tabs on Dreykov’s daughter Antonia and when she went into the building, they knew that the head of the Red Room was in there and Natasha detonated the bombs.
Natasha assumed that Dreykov died in the explosion and viewed the death of Antonia as necessary “collateral” to rid the world of Dreykov. After the explosions, Natasha and Clint had to go into hiding in Budapest – in a train station vent of all places – to avoid capture.
It’s not clear how Natasha came on SHIELD’s radar or came into contact with Clint, but after this incident, she defected to SHIELD and the rest, as they say, is history.
It’s not the first time that Natasha causing the death of Dreykov’s daughter has been referenced in the MCU.
Back in The Avengers, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) taunts Natasha over the red in her ledger: “Can you wipe out that much red? Dreykov’s daughter, São Paulo, the hospital fire… Barton told me everything.”
He’s unaware that it’s all a ploy by Natasha, which suggested that she wasn’t too haunted by the death. In Black Widow, it’s Yelena (Florence Pugh) who essentially has to force Natasha to remember and confront what she did: cold-bloodedly sacrificing a young girl.
So it’s not that Natasha isn’t haunted by causing the death of an innocent young girl at the time of The Avengers, it’s more that she’s blocked it out and justified it because she assumed that it had at least killed Dreykov.
As it turned out though, the Budapest mission not only failed to kill Dreykov, but also didn’t kill Antonia either.
The gut punch that truly gets Natasha to accept the horror of what she did comes when Dreykov reveals that Antonia didn’t die in the explosion. Instead, he transformed her into Taskmaster, a relentless assassin to be used at Dreykov’s will.
Antonia is played by Olga Kurylenko in a largely wordless role, and Natasha does at least get to rectify the sins of her past when she saves Taskmaster during Black Widow’s explosive finale.
So at least we now know that Natasha had wiped some of the red from her ledger by the time of her sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame.
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