Bucky had been kidding, however bleak the humor, but that tone caught his attention and he looked at Clint, eyebrows quirking a little and mouth twisting up in the wry smile that only pulled at the corners of one side of his mouth. "Guy using me for a pillow doesn't get to tell me what to do," Bucky said, mild and a little more easily playful instead of forced.
Trouble's circling drew Moo's attention away from her scaling efforts, little face moving in time with his tail in a way that was not that reassuring for the goats in the room, probably. The dog seemed laid back enough that Bucky wasn't that worried. Moo was quick, too. She'd be hard to catch.
"He'll do that anyway. Worry. Guy's going to have wrinkles deep enough to keep stuff in from how much he frowns at shit," Bucky said. And he'd dragged Clint here for some half-baked drying out idea that Clint barely seemed to want, so Steve was already worrying. Bucky was too, if Clint was that drunk, that often. But he knew what it was like to need a crutch because the alternative was sober and unthinkable. Bucky would never yank that away from someone unless they'd asked him to take it. He laughed a little. "Wondered why this whole place smelled like soap. You don't wash your own damn clothes usually?"
Bucky felt Clint sinking into him and went back to petting his hair, figuring he must be doing something right. He paused, and then kept on, starting to admit that he hadn't known he missed it until recently, that Clint might be right. Because it was honest and Bucky had no reason to lie - it wouldn't get either of them anywhere, and what the fuck would it hurt if he admitted he missed it too?
But then Clint looked at him and kept talking, and Bucky froze, going stiff. He wasn't fucking stupid, he knew what Clint meant. Bucky barely admitted it to himself, had never said it out loud at all. He had no designs or expectations - there was Peggy, and Steve had never seen him the same way anyway. Bucky himself had only just started to really realize when he was Reaped and everything changed. But the fact that Bucky never expected anything, would never say anything - it didn't make it not there.
He hadn't known he gave it away though. Steve would never notice. Steve needed someone to wear a sign practically before he realized they had any interest. But if Barton saw, someone else might.
He wouldn't tell, though, Bucky thought. And what would it matter if he did? People thought Bucky was fucking Steve. It didn't matter.
Bucky eased a little, not quite meeting Clint's eyes. He shrugged, left shouldered, and his right fingers moved through Clint's hair again. "He doesn't see. 'sall that matters." It wasn't quite a straight up admittance, but it was close enough. It felt ... strangely freeing to say it.