WARNING: The following contains massive spoilers for Black Widow #4 by Kelly Thompson, Elena Casagrande, Jordie Bellaire, Carlos Gómez, Federico Blee, and VC's Cory Petit, on sale now.
Natasha's life has been through a lot of twists and turns recently. The Avenger has gone from being an active agent of SHIELD to...a suburban mom named Natalie with no memory of her former life. Of course, Natasha's transformation into Natalie was the result of a plot to take her off the board as the Black Widow...at least, for a little while.
As it would turn out, this plot was concocted by a whole cabal of Black Widow's most dangerous enemies. Among these villains are the likes of Arcade, Snapdragon, the Red Guardian, and of course Madame Hydra. The plan, on its face, is actually not so cruel. In fact, one could say it's at least somewhat kind: give Natasha a picture-perfect life, with a successful career, a beautiful home, and a family who loves her.
Of course, that last part proved to be a bit difficult, given that Black Widow was very much single and childless when Hydra took her in New York. However, that was a problem that could be "fixed." As Natasha herself has begun to remember, when Hydra took her, they absconded her to a secret lab along with another abductee, a man. This man was, of course, James, who would become her new boyfriend in her new perfect life. Here, Hydra took both her and James's DNA and combined them into a clone, a baby who would become their son, Stevie.
The villains then placed an implant in Natasha's brain to make her forget her previous life altogether and implanted new memories of a life she never lived. They filled it with happy memories of her and James building a life together, of the birth of Stevie, and of their overall happiness. Recent events have forced Natasha to remember her life and the fact that this new existence is a falsehood. Regardless of this knowledge, though, Natasha is set on protecting her new family, who she loves just as much as she would if they came to her through the traditional route.
Upon learning that the Black Widow's memories have returned to her, Madame Hydra sends a whole squadron of goons to buy her and her co-conspirators some time. Natasha quickly dispatches all of them, with minimal effort. In the middle of the action, Yelena comes to help. Since Natasha and her new family are no longer safe at their house, she helps make arrangements to get them to a safe house
She tells James that he and Stevie have to go into hiding and forget about her. In her own words, she has to be "worse than dead" to them because otherwise, they will never have a chance at a peaceful life. After everything has seemingly settled down, however, James, Stevie, and Natasha retire to the living room of the safe house. Stevie is wiped from all the craziness of the day and, right when they are about to put him down, James remarks how lucky they were to have Natasha, even if just for a moment. As Natasha digests this, she stays with them until they are asleep and then goes to join Bucky and Hawkeye. But, just as she walks away, a projectile is fired into the safehouse, causing a massive explosion and seemingly killing James and Stevie.
As the flames burn, we see Natasha in tears over her now apparently dead family. Hydra has in one fell swoop both given Natasha the greatest happiness she has ever known and caused her the greatest pain by taking it all away from her. Too bad for them, though, she now knows what they did to her and nobody can escape the Black Widow for long.