The kiss doesn't surprise her at all. She rolls with it, kisses him back easily, and with something that could even be mistaken for feeling. It is feeling, she tells herself: Yelena Aleksandrovna loves her husband very, very much. She loves him very, very much.

That said... if they need to keep seeing this through, she will without a second thought, but she breaks the kiss after a moment and looks down at his face, clasping it between her hands, searching his eyes. Do they need to? Do they need to commit their bodies to this -- to take advantage of all those pheromones and chemicals that can create an artificial bond where no real one exists?