There were a lot of things Bucky wanted to say, but he held his tongue for the time being. Natasha was opening up, and he worried if he spoke too soon she'd stop, or redirect her words, or dismiss what she'd intended to say in favor of something else. This was the sort of opening up he'd been hoping she would eventually feel comfortable enough to do. Ever since he'd found out about what her fate was back home, he'd been so angry and upset, furious that there was nothing he could've done to stop it. Or what if there had been? If he'd spoken up to her before everything, before Thanos, maybe she wouldn't have been so quick to want to sacrifice herself. Bucky wouldn't let himself be quite that presumptuous. After all, she might've still done it knowing it would bring him back. Those were the dangerous sort of thoughts that usually put him into a tailspin downward too -- all those what if's, that really didn't amount to anything because he had to live in the moment now. He couldn't dwell or wonder, because that was the worst. The absolute worst thing for his mental space.
"I think.. I think it's more complicated than that," he said. Complicated. He said that a lot. He felt that way a lot. But that was the reality here. "I'd like to think, hope, maybe that the Clint from our world chose to go back home, to be with his family, because that's what you gave your life for him to be able to do. Because what you did mattered so much, it'd be a dishonor to not do that." His fingers traced small, gentle patterns along her back, until he reached the ends of her hair which he affectionately twisted Into his fingers as he kissed the top of her head again.
"But, I get what you're saying," he said. "And I know there's nothing that's really going to make it an easier reality to accept. I'm sorry, Natalia. I wish I could just say the right thing and it'd make the pain go away. All I can do is be here. Clint, too. We're here. We've got this shot to be something amazing together. I think about it too, sometimes. How isolated I was and how that just became normal. The life I led before HYDRA got a hold of me sounds like I'm remembering someone else because I'd forgotten what it was like. But here, we've got the chance to be ourselves, not who we were." Bucky didn't know if anything he was saying was going to help at all, but he hoped he'd bring her some comfort. "I'm not discrediting how you feel. I told you from the start when you got here that you should be shouting and angry and hurt and upset after what happened. But now that you are letting yourself feel, I just hope you'll let me and Clint or anyone else be there with you. And that we can just keep moving together, building this life we're starting here."