"Does it ever bother you that, in the end, we're all just stories?"
She seems almost to be talking to herself, staring out over the expanse of New York lights stretching forever below, but there's an unnoticeable weight added to the atmosphere and she knows he's come up behind her.
"One day I'll be dead," she says, "and there will be nothing left but the twisted tales of the Black Widow. People will know me, but they won't have known me. I'll be a character, a pawn, another 'Once upon a time.'"
"And eventually, people will forget and I'll not have mattered at all."
"We're all going to die, Nat," he states, breaking her words, his voice floating into the mix of shouting people and car horns and fading into the inky clouds. "One day, yeah. And I plan to deserve it."
Deep breaths in the clear air and she closes her eyes, taking that trusting step backwards and falling against his chest. She matches his rhythm, calming, and slips her head into the crook under his chin.
He runs his hands up and down her strong arms, skin nearly frozen to the touch. "But don't ever say you never mattered, Nat. You matter to me."
The silence falls again, mimicking the lazy drift of the snowflakes as the white floats around them, adding a cold quality to the safety of the roof.
She hates that there are no stars.
"I'm not going to be a story," she whispers, stopping one of his hands to wrap her own tightly around. He exhales deeply, expelling the sharp air in a cloud of existence and soul and water vapor.
"I'm going to be a legend," she finishes and he smiles into her curls.