Appearing in "The Ties That Bind: Part 4"
Featured Characters:
- Black Widow / Natalie Grey (Natasha Romanoff) (Main story and flashback)
Supporting Characters:
- James (Apparent death), Natalie's fiancé
- Stevie (Apparent death), Natalie's son
- Black Widow / Helen (Yelena Belova)
- Hawkeye (Clint Barton)
- Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes)
Antagonists:
- Viper / Madame Hydra (Ophelia Sarkissian) (Main story and flashback)
- Arcade
- Weeping Lion
- Snapdragon (Sheoke Sanada)
- Red Guardian (Alexei Shostakov)
- Hydra (Main story and flashback)
Other Characters:
- A.I.M. (Mentioned)
- Elektra Natchios (Vision or hallucination)
- The Hand (Vision or hallucination)
- Red Skull (Johann Shmidt) (Vision or hallucination)
- Lady Bullseye (Vision or hallucination)
- Damon Dran (Vision or hallucination)
- Norman Osborn (Vision or hallucination)
- Mandrill (Jerome Beechman) (Vision or hallucination)
- Bullseye (Lester) (Vision or hallucination)
- Taskmaster (Tony Masters) (Vision or hallucination)
- Ultron (Vision or hallucination)
- Headmistress (Anya) (Vision or hallucination)
- Baron Strucker (Wolfgang von Strucker) (Vision or hallucination)
- Imus Champion (Vision or hallucination)
- Kingpin (Wilson Fisk) (Vision or hallucination)
- Ivan Petrovich (Vision or hallucination)
- Iron Maiden (Melina Vostokoff) (Vision or hallucination)
- Doctor Doom (Victor von Doom) (Vision or hallucination)
- Madame Masque (Whitney Frost) (Vision or hallucination)
Races and Species:
Locations:
- Earth
- United States
- California
- Sausalito
- Black Widow's Villa
- San Francisco
- Sausalito
- California
- France (Only in flashback)
- United States
Items:
- Black Widow's Gauntlets (Only in flashback)
- Doctor Doom's Armor (Cameo)
- Winter Soldier's Bionic Arm
- Hawkeye's Suit
Vehicles:
- Hydra's Flying Platform (Only in flashback)
Synopsis for "The Ties That Bind: Part 4"
Waking up, Natasha remembers herself and her love for James and Stevie from her Natalie identity. As Weeping Lion is confused by her surviving the electrocution for the dart, Viper sends her personal guards to delay a reactivated Black Widow and plans to hide. However, now that they are forced into the "Kill Black Widow" plan by Weeping Lion, Snapdragon asks Viper to stay with their group in a bid to finally be rid of their adversary. At the house, hearing more assassins entering, Natasha directs James to head her every instruction in order to escape. As Natasha kills Viper's Hydra guards, Yelena reveals herself to kill a straggler and save James and Stevie.
Telling Natasha her exfil plan, they make their way to a clean car and arrive at one of Natasha's safe houses. With Stevie asleep and Yelena checking their security, Natasha tells James what she knows of their ordeal and how they came together. After her capture by Viper in New York four months earlier, they took her to a lab where she was strapped to a bed next to him, with Stevie growing in a pod from their shared DNA. Despite a fictional past and living happily in Sausalito under observation, Natasha opens that everything with their love was real, but she doesn't know who else helped Viper. An apologetic Natasha asks James to leave her and raise Stevie safely, while James refuses with intentions to stay by her side. So Natasha starts asking him sharp questions with the aim of taking Stevie far away from him, free of her life as Black Widow.
Ending their talk, she introduces him to Clint and Bucky, and properly introduces them to her baby and fiancé. As the group formulate their plan of attack, Yelena plays peacekeeper with Bucky and Clint as Natasha puts her boys to rest. With Stevie's pension for escape artistry, James agrees to stay with the baby as he sleeps. Letting them know she was lucky to have them, an unseen sniper fires a volley into the den, seemingly killing James and Stevie. Yelena stares in disbelief while Clint and Bucky hold Natasha back, cry in sorrow and rage.
Solicit Synopsis
WHAT LIES BENEATH?
The plan to take the Black Widow off the table unravels as the Black Widow inside Natasha continues to wake. But Natasha has more to lose now than ever before, and the choices she makes will define her life forever. As for her enemies that have joined against her…they have badly underestimated her…a fatal error.