There had been a lot of glib comments she'd considered, on the way over. A lot of paths she could have carved out in the name of keeping it light and breezy and skimming along the surface. If there was ever anyone who would have let her get away with that, it probably would have been Tony. It wouldn't have even been like coaxing a mark to talk about what she wanted them to talk about, steering the conversation like the spy she'd been bred to be - Tony could push, and Tony could prod, but Tony was also someone who understood about the defenses and barriers people threw up in the name of self-preservation. Sometimes he would play along, if it was something that would have ripped at one of his soft places, too.
Looking at him now, though, and she realized it would have been all wrong. It would have been a dishonorable choice. It would have devalued everything she had told him she'd come to appreciate.
Tony said her name. The short version. The one he'd earned the right to call her so many years ago she couldn't remember when he'd slipped into it full time, and there was really only one thing she could do. Natasha walked up the steps to his house, cupped his face in her hands carefully, and bent in so that she could kiss his forehead. Gently. Silently.
There was nothing she could have done to make it more horribly, openly clear that everything she had told him was the very ugly truth. That it was real. That she had jumped, and there was a world out there where she was gone.
She was here now, though, and when she'd pressed her lips to his forehead for long enough, she let him go. "Hey, Stark." It came out thick.