Black Widow (Natalia Romanova aka Natasha Romanoff) breaks into the Russian bunker housing the computer that initiated the Icepick Protocol last issue, which led to the death of her old friend Ivan. She defeats an armoured guard, one of the Federal Dynamos.
Entering the control room, she persuades the technicians to let her access the computer, where she discovers the secret of the Protocol. She had long ago been infested with nanites, which she has passed on to anyone she spent a lot of time with.
The final scene has Clint Barton having breakfast with Bobbi Morse, when the Icepick Protocol activates his nanites and Bobbi attacks him with her cutlery.
Meanwhile we are treated to the next stage of BW's history. Last issue we left Natalia Romanova and Ivan Petrovich returning to work for the Soviets in 1956 after receiving a longevity drug (which also saved Ivan's life).
Now it is 1957, and Natalia meets military test pilot Colonel Alexei Shostakov. When he asks what she does, she gives conflicting answers. In one version she is a single 17 year old ballerina. In another she is 29 and a Black Widow agent trained by the Red Room, and romantically involved. In both scenarios her parents are alive.
6 weeks later Natalia is telling her lover Winter Soldier that she's going to marry Alexei. Ivan comes to see her, and she confesses she doesn't understand her memories.
In the next scene its 1963 and Alexei has supposedly died testing a rocket as part of the moon race. Natalia is now his widow. She's forgotten about her Black Widow training, and thinks she was an ordinary housewife. But now she feels an urge to become a spy to get back at the West which she blames for her husband's death. And she has an inexplicable feeling that she'd be good at it.
Apparently Krushchev had disbanded Stalin's Red Room/Black Widows program, and had tried to give Natalia a normal life. But now he accedes to her request to become a spy, but sends Ivan to watch over her. Then we see that Alexei isn't actually dead. He has been turned into the Soviet super hero Red Guardian.
We now enter Marvel time, a few decades later. Natasha has spent the time wooing wealthy Western technologists, who always seem to die, earning her the nickname Black Widow. Now she's become involved with Tony Stark, but he makes it out alive.
A year later and Natasha is using Hawkeye (Clint Barton) to get at Stark. Ivan and Tony both worry that Natasha is still confused.