Clint's Bed-Stuy's apartment was messy, but an organised messiness compared to how awful it used to be around half a year ago. There weren't any normal nor trick arrows lying around the place or stuck in walls nor furniture; his usually scattered clothes had been piled over in a corner in his bedroom, no longer lying around the whole apartment. More food slowly filled his usually-almost-full-of-beer frigde --in his defense, he barely ate there for him to actually buy enough food and the beer he'd share with anyone who came by and on the nights most of the building heads up to the roof to dinner and socialise--. It was new for the archer to put this much effort in cleaning up his mess of a place --home-- when getting in a new relationship. It's not that he didn't before, just that none of his previous relationships had actually come here and none had stayed around long enough for him to try to actually find a solution to his messy lifestyle.
Before becoming the landlord of the building, his old apartment had been impeccable. The archer had learnt way too early in life to always be ready to flee, so he never bothered with making a place a home due to the perpetual anxiety that one day he'll would have to pack the esentials and leave, and that showed in all of his previous resting places --not homes, a home is a place where you're supposed to be able to relax and be comfortable. To just exist without worries. Only the tenants of his newest place had made of it something worth of calling a home, something he thought he never had or would ever have--. But clearly, things had changed for him in this building.
Bucky seemed to like the building and its residents, because even just a short period of time before they became official, the soldier had come to hang around quite often, he sometimes even brought Alpine --a white furred cat he adopted who knows when, he guessed from the streets--. Thankfully for both men, their pets got along well, so there was nothing to worry about regarding them.
Bucky was currently helping with the dishes, --Clint had repeatedly assured the shorter man that it wasn't necessary, but he still ended up helping-- while Lucky and Alpine napped in the archer's couch, the white cat curled up on top of the one-eyed labrador.
"Everything alright?" Bucky glanced at Clint, who had taken to drying and putting away the very few dishes he owns, --he really needed to buy more if now that the average number of people coming around went higher than one--. The blond had been awfully quiet. He was obviously more than capable to remain silent when the time asked for it --how else would he be one of the best SHIELD agents?-- or if he just was comfortable in the quietness, but today was neither of those. The soldier could connect this silence as one of being uncomfortable, marked by the string of tension on the archer's movements --something only skilled people like himself and Natasha could easily identify on their favorite archer, which said archer partially hated at times when he really just wanted to swallow in his own misery--.
"What? Uh, yeah. Of course! Why wouldn't it?" Clint cringed at the way his supposedly-reassuring answer came out, it's harder to trick someone if that someone can see behind your act from miles away. He put away the plate he just finished drying up. The soldier continued rinsing the last of the dishes, giving the other man time to sort out his thoughts together if he wanted to talk. Just as he finished the last glass, Clint sighed, breaking the stiff silence of the kitchen. "Do my messes bother you or anything? I can clean up more if it does-"
The soldier then rested a hand --his flesh one-- on the other's shoulder, putting an inch of pressure on it to pull the archer off from his sudden apologetic rambling. "Hey, calm down," there might've been something better to start with, but it's not like Bucky was known for being able to comfort others with words. "it's your place, I can't just go on and demand you change it if it doesn't represent you."
The archer looked into the soldier's greyish-blue eyes with confusion, a seldom moment where the taller showed his raw emotions --whether voluntarily or not--. "What?" Clint stared at his partner as if he grew two heads. "This place's a mess, how can you be fine with that?"
The soldier relaxed his grip on the archer's shoulder, but didn't remove his hand from him yet. "Yeah, it might be messy, but if that's how you fuction around, who am I to change that? I'll only worry if it becomes an actual living hazard." Bucky tried to reassure him. Eventually, he could feel the archer's body relaxing, which, good news.
"Ok, ok. Got it." Clint then resumed drying up the forgotten last two dishes, they hadn't really used much, but they also didn't rush cleaning them.
The soldier picked up on the unspoken way the archer asked to end this conversation, so after giving the man a pat on the shoulder, he walked out of the kitchen, walking around the couch both of their pets still rested on and sat on the other end of it, preparing an episode of Dog Cops he knew his partner would apreciate.