James slept most of the way back to the Avengers tower, kindly donated by stark after the attack on New York. Steve never took his eyes off him, still in shock to have his best friend back after so long.
Natasha however was watching the soldier with a cold gaze, entirely expecting him to jump up suddenly and slaughter them all. She knew how rigorous the Hydra programming was, she had seen it first hand as this man pushed her further then she thought she could go in the pursuit of the perfect assassin.
Seeing his face again brought back long buried memories of the red room, where he had been hired to push her until she broke, and then keep pushing. He was her jailor, her torturer, but in some of his more lucid points he had also been her friend and on one occasion her lover.
Her feelings were still conflicted when they set down on the platform but the look on Steve's face made her keep quiet as James was half dragged through the doors so Steve could show off the tower to him.
Stark didn't help the situation at all, acting like a child at Christmas as he fawned all over James for a chance to get his hands on his arm and the Hydra programming. He and Jarvis worked all night to create a series of firewalls and viruses to wipe out the last of Hydra's control over the soldier but also set up a tracking system to help them locate the command centre to destroy it.
However once Hydra realised what was happening they began fighting back, eventually causing James so much pain he had to be put in a coma for a week, during which both Steve and Natasha didn't leave his side, although they had different reasons for staying.
Eventually James was deemed safe and Tony was able to examine the man fully. It took him just one glance to start rushing round the room throwing together new designs for the arm, all of them lighter than the current one due to the strain it was putting on James' Body.
The only issue was that in order to replace the arm James would have to undergo surgery to remove the current arm and fix the damage flesh, but James was terrified of being put to sleep again.
Steve was a big help and at keeping the soldier calm in the few times they did have to inject him with something that might make him drowsy, keeping him focused on the fun they used to have rather than the fear.
Eventually they were able to convince James to have the surgery after a chat with Tony and Steve about Tony's old shrapnel problem and Steve's years on ice. They convinced him they wouldn't let him sleep longer than was absolutely necessary for him to heal and James then signed the papers.
They still had a few weeks to go through before the operation to ensure there were no kinks in the new arm and that James wouldn't reject it, so James spent a lot of time catching up on the new word in Steve's floor of the avenger's tower.
The whole floor had a 1940's theme to it to make it Steve's safe haven in a world he didn't understand, not that James had much time to follow the latest trends when working for Hydra. But even here his nightmares plagued him every night and he was often woken up by Steve, drenched in sweat and knife in hand.
Unfortunately SHIELD didn't trust him so he wasn't allowed to speak to anyone about his nightmares who didn't already work for SHIELD, and there were some things he really didn't want them to know about him just yet. Which just left him with Steve to talk to and for some reason he couldn't tell his best friend about his dark past.
They continued this pattern of learning, haunting memories and broken nights for three weeks before Steve was called away for a few days to help shut down another Hydra base, leaving James alone to deal with his nightmares for the first time since he was rescued.
The only people not going to the base attack were Natasha and the good doctor, as he would not be needed and she was still recovering from a mission in Fiji. So Steve asked her to look after James while she was gone, hoping maybe she would be able to get him to open up and talk about what was plaguing him in his dreams.
Little did he know that it would be the start of something beautiful.