Bucky watched her blush, nonplussed. But old instincts not to let a girl feel bad were hard to kill, even in an Arena, and he started trying to fix it - awkward but sincere. "Hey, no. You're here," Bucky said. "I shouldn't have said it, and ... you know if anything happened, I probably would. There's no cushion or anything left. But you tried to help. I appreciate that. And you're here. Stay a while or something?" He gave her a wry half smile. "8's not a palace, but can't be worse than the Capitol."
Bucky didn't know Natasha. Not the nuts and bolts and secrets of her. He wouldn't have presumed that he did, because it wasn't for him to know. But he believed he knew enough to know that the show she put on was just that - a show. She didn't love the Capitol anymore than he did, or more than Barton or Tony. Some moments and aspects they may get used to, but it didn't mean they loved it. It was the kind of assumption Natasha could use to bite him in the ass, if she wanted to - but deep down, Bucky thought she was just like the rest of them. Trapped and making the best of it, just putting a better face on than the rest of them. Because of that, he didn't really believe she had the same manipulative malice they had in the Capitol. The capability for it, maybe, but Bucky didn't believe she'd use it against him. It was why he hadn't really fought when she'd asked him for a favor, no matter how much it made him feel panicked to think about what it might mean later.
"Ma'll just sleep, and Becs will go see her boyfriend. No one realizes you're here anyway, right? I'll make sandwiches or something," Bucky said. In the back of his mind he thought of Steve, talking about friends and how Bucky said they weren't all friends, just fellow murdering survivors. And then Bucky offered quietly. "You don't gotta stay if you want to go. You don't owe me anything, and I don't want anything from you. But if you want to stay a while, I wouldn't mind company. You can sneak out better later anyway, probably?" Bucky figured she was usually used to people other than a choice few having ulterior motives if they asked her to hang around. Maybe she'd even think he would want to cash in on what everyone was going to think he'd already paid for. But Bucky wouldn't - not with that heavy and awful between them, the livid marks on her neck.
She'd just come all this way, and Bucky didn't want her to walk out the door regretting that like he'd jerked her around. He hadn't meant to. He'd just been trying to ... make light of something too heavy to breathe through, a little.