Natasha knew perfectly well that she had a tendency towards being standoffish when someone made a kind gesture in her direction - privately, at least, because the private version of herself was someone miles apart from the public version. The best way to get her to accept it had always been to just do it before she could throw up a roadblock, a barrier, rattle of five reasons to just not. One more brick in the walls of self-defense that she'd erected around herself, built and reinforced over years of surviving life in the Capitol. And now? Now, there didn't seem to be a whole lot of point in keeping someone else at arm's length, even when it didn't feel like it came naturally. She was as out of practice with this as she was with making knots, the ropes that made her fingers feel stiff and clumsy and big-knuckled as she tried to make them remember things they'd once known.
Letting him drape his jacket across her shoulders felt a little bit like that. "Thank you," she said, and decided not to press the point much further than that. "And it's all right. I'm sure they really were very good drugs, and equally sure that the kiss was nothing to write home about. Teenagers are clumsy."
She'd never understood why Bucky tried so hard with her. Why he wanted this so much, but it wasn't really the sort of question you could ask someone. It wasn't something she thought a person would be able to articulate, and less so if they were put on the spot for it. He never seemed to react to any of the times she rebuffed him but anything more than an accepting shrug and then the promise to come try it again sometime. Bucky was good at leaving a thing alone without giving up on it altogether. She didn't know many people who had his brand of patience that never veered into exasperation. Sort of a shame they couldn't trust him with the rest of t.
She was startled into a little bit of a laugh at his description of life outside the Tribute housing; she wouldn't see it for herself again until the night of the interviews, and it was almost welcome. "Petaluna Kingsley," Natasha confirmed, and almost smiled. The old woman doted on Clint, fawned, really, had probably donated a heap of money to send him sponsor gifts back when he'd been in the ring. She probably would this time, too, come to think of it. "Seems fitting for her, really, she never liked me much. Always very frosty to me at parties."