It helped a little, having the animals to watch shuffle around. Bucky spent a lot of time watching Moo anyway. Because she was a tiny demolition squad with thieving paws and no depth perception while leaping at things - but also just because he liked watching her stalk around or fuss or be cute. It was calming.
When he'd draped up against Steve with Clint there, Bucky had years of familiarity behind it, and a drug undercutting the new strangeness and tension to make it easy. They didn't have that now, and Bucky was stiff, not denying Clint any of the contact and trying to adjust as he seemed to want to be held - but it was awkward and one-armed, cheeks a little pink. He wasn't embarrassed to do it, he was embarrassed to be bad at it, to have something that simple feel so strained.
He made a face as Clint joked, but took a deep breath, slouching a little more into the couch. "You don't know. Seen the insides of this arm? They could have packed in something that's radiating everybody," Bucky said after a too-long beat. But he managed, and he tightened his arm a little around Clint, shifting so he could pet fingers through the short hair. Bucky used to like that, back when people touched him.
"Sorry," Bucky added quietly. "Not used to it." Bucky dropped his head back, eyes following Moo's movements. "Barton, Steve doing something's never a good way to prove it's not stupid," Bucky said wryly. He scrubbed his fingers through Clint's hair lightly again before wrapping his arm back around him where he was tucked up against Bucky's chest. "Why me?" he asked quietly. "Steve was here."