**Spoilers for Marvel’s Black Widow lie within.**
Black Widow takes place between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War for Natasha Romanoff, which means we don’t know what characters from the movie survived the Snap and who went away for five years only to come back and have to figure out the lives they left behind. One of those characters is Yelena Belova, whose future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is slowly coming together.
While we don’t currently know whether or not she was gone for five years, we’ll apparently find out, at some point, what happened to Yelena when Thanos snapped. During a Black Widow watch party on Twitter, Kevin Feige shared that we’ll learn all about those five years for her later on, but not during the watch party.
You will find out, but not on this Twitter thread. -KF #BlackWidowWatchParty https://t.co/TZxKX0Gws5
— Marvel Studios (@MarvelStudios) July 20, 2021
To be honest, it’d be even more tragic if she did end up being snapped away because she would have lost those five years with Natasha on top of already losing so much time with her sister. As we saw in Black Widow, the two were working on their relationship after not having really been in touch for years. They left one another with the hope of hanging on to the relationship they once had and how they could move forward with each other.
But then, as we saw in the post-credits scene, Yelena is left alone following Natasha’s death in Avengers: Endgame. One of my favorite parts about Black Widow is the dynamic between Nat and Yelena and that relationship that they clearly once had. If Yelena was, in fact, snapped, that’s just one more sad thing about Natasha’s life after Infinity War.
When we see her in Endgame, she’s looking for Clint, and that seems to be her main motivation, so maybe Yelena was snapped away and her focus is on the one person in her life who is still there for her. When the Avengers broke apart, she still had a relationship with Clint Barton, and she had just fixed her first family. If everyone we met in Black Widow turned to dust, it’d leave Nat with just Clint to look for and would explain her dedication to finding him in those five years.
Whatever happened to Yelena, I hope she at least got to see Natasha again at some point. The two clearly cared about each other, and after them fixing their relationship, it hurts to know that there aren’t many moments that the two could still share with each other. But after all, we do know that Yelena clearly misses her sister and is going to do whatever she has to in order to avenge Natasha. Because, like Yelena said in Black Widow, it is in the name: “Avengers.”
(via Entertainment Weekly, image: Marvel Entertainment)
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