As it’s a prequel, we know a few things about how Black Widow has to go. One of them is that we know Natasha Romanoff returns to her Avengers family after the events of the movie, so her reunion with her old Russian family has to be short-lived. In the trailers, though, Nat seems as thick as thieves – well, assassins – with Yelena (Florence Pugh), Melina (Rachel Weisz) and Alexei (David Harbour). So what happens?
Well, fans are theorizing that it’ll turn out that either Yelena or Melina, or maybe both, can’t be trusted. This is a spy movie, after all, so it’s the law that there has to be some kind double-cross or mole in the ranks. A new piece evidence supports this theory, too, with a secret hint at HYDRA potentially appearing on the character posters for both Pugh and Weisz.
As you can see in the gallery below, there’s a running motif across these posters that gives the impression of redacted Russian files. According to Reddit user u/Pretend_Wedding, some of the writing on Yelena and Melina’s posters translates to “from the darkness” on one and “towards the light” on the other. They note that this code phrase was how HYDRA agents were mobilized on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The inference seems to be, then, that the pair are secretly working for HYDRA.
HYDRA’s infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. was defeated in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, of course, with the Avengers shown dismantling the remaining factions of the organization in Age of Ultron. However, teaser footage for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier recently hinted that HYDRA is back once again. So, it’s possible that Natasha’s potentially treacherous friends are allied with the resurfaced evil cabal.
Something like this would certainly make Nat realize who her real family is and set up her joining Cap’s Secret Avengers in Infinity War, but we’ll find out if there’s anything to this theory when Black Widow arrives in theaters on May 1st.
