It was a nice thing to say. It was, and the sweetness in it, the simplicity, that was something she found strangely touching. Someone telling her that he wanted to help her, he wanted to make her feel better, but he didn't know how and he found that frustrating - the straightforwardness of it was refreshing. Touching, like her first initial thought, and for some reason, it made the stinging sensation in her eyes make a repeat appearance.
Natasha wasn't fine. She was so many miles away from 'fine'. But it would take so much longer to put herself back together than it would to let herself fall apart, and it meant that it was a step that was better skipped entirely. Cut straight to the part where she was fine and move beyond the uglier middle.
"It's nice of you to say that. It is," she told him, her fingers still curled around her now-empty mug, trying to still absorb some of the leftover warmth from it. "But you don't....it's not your responsibility to know what I need, James. It's sweet of you to want that, it is. You owe me nothing." If she'd known what he needed, it had only been through so much observation, form the way she paid attention. There wasn't much that escaped Natasha's notice unless she was trying to be deliberately obtuse. And she went out of her way to create an image of herself that wasn't worth the same amount of scrutiny.
She couldn't tell him what would have made her feel better; she didn't know herself. If he was anyone else, she would have reached for him. Cupped his face in her hand, a fond brush of her fingers through his hair. But he didn't like to be touched by her, she remembered that. And she'd done more than enough of it last night. Her plate was empty now, too, and so she rose from her seat. "I like doing dishes. Genuinely," she told him. "And thanks for making the bed. Plenty worse things have happened in it than a relatively clean guy taking a nap in it, I promise."