OVERLAY REPORT

In the film *Black Widow* (2021), the main characters—**Natasha Romanoff, Yelena Belova, Alexei Shostakov,** and **Melina Vostokoff**—know each other from a three-year undercover mission in Ohio during the 1990s. While they were not biologically related, they lived together as a "sleeper cell" posing as a normal American family. ### 1. The Ohio Undercover Mission (1992–1995) The four characters were hand-picked by the **Red Room** (a secret Soviet/Russian program) to infiltrate the United States. They lived in suburban Ohio for three years under the guise of the "Lebedev" family. * **Alexei Shostakov (The Father):** Posed as a regular working-class father but was actually the **Red Guardian**, the Soviet Union's super-soldier answer to Captain America. * **Melina Vostokoff (The Mother):** Posed as a housewife but was a seasoned Black Widow assassin and a brilliant scientist. She was the one who actually ran the technical side of the mission. * **Natasha Romanoff (The Eldest Daughter):** Approximately 11 years old during the mission, she had already been recruited into the Red Room but was placed in the family to maintain the cover. * **Yelena Belova (The Youngest Daughter):** Only 6 years old at the time, she was too young to understand the mission was fake and genuinely believed they were a real family. ### 2. The Purpose of the Mission Their specific objective was to infiltrate a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility (later revealed to be controlled by Hydra) called the **North Institute**. They were tasked with stealing research on "psychological rewiring"—specifically, data on how to control the basal ganglia of the brain. This research eventually became the foundation for the Red Room’s chemical mind-control program used on future "Widows." ### 3. The Separation In 1995, once the mission was completed and their cover was blown, the family fled to Cuba in a dramatic escape. Upon arrival, they were met by **General Dreykov**, the head of the Red Room. * **Natasha and Yelena** were forcibly separated from their "parents" and taken to the Red Room to be trained as assassins. * **Alexei** was sent back to Russia, where he was eventually imprisoned in a gulag after falling out of favor with Dreykov. * **Melina** returned to work as one of the Red Room’s lead scientists, continuing the mind-control research they had stolen in Ohio. ### 4. Shared History in the Red Room Beyond the Ohio mission, all four characters are products of the Red Room system. Natasha and Melina are both "Black Widows" (though from different generations), and Yelena was trained in the same facility as Natasha after their "childhood" ended. The film centers on these characters reuniting decades later to confront the trauma of their fake family and the organization that created them.