Zola had spoken of his life in terms of equations, sums and algorithims, as if the world could be so determined down to the smallest detail, a single life within it. Where he had been wrong, the Smithsonian had been too, in believing that there was a world in which James Buchanan Barnes, in whatever form he could get him, was not as much a part of himself as the color of his hair, or the beat of his own heart. The man who stood before him then had been taken and changed by the years, by all the monstrosities that had been done to him when the two of them had not stood side to side, or back to back, but that much of that equation had not changed.

Even where it is almost a struggle to look at him in knowing how he had failed his oldest friend, it was a greater struggle to keep himself from rushing or overwhelming the other man with his own emotions. He could not be selfish in that, no matter how he was tempted, and kept a careful measure to his words, no matter how honest they were.

For all that, he smiled still when this new Barnes agreed, and while the gesture was kept small, it was wholly meant as he carefully got to his feet and gathered up his few things. "I can go get them now, or-" he hesitated, uncertain whether the other man would be likely to panic or back away if he felt cornered in a small space (as if his room could be termed that, when he'd been given as much space as the whole troupe of girls back in his war bonds days) but equally uncertain whether the man might still be there if he left him waiting to retrieve the books alone. In the end he decided to leave the decision up to Barnes. "Or would you can come with me?"