Several hours later, Bucky was stretched out beside his gal waiting for her to awaken. She'd been tossing and turning and crying for the past hour or so because the pain med had finally wore off and her feet were hurting like a mother fucker. And while he sort of admired her dedication to sleep, she really needed to wake up and let him give her another pain med before she got any worse.

However Ichigo didn't seem to be anywhere near waking up. Which was...concerning to say the least. Especially since normal people didn't tend to be able to ignore physical suffering enough to be able to sleep by any means. Finally after waiting a few minutes longer for her to stir and getting nowhere fast, Bucky finally placed his hand against her cheek and gently tried to wake her.

"Doll? Doll? Hey, you need to wake up." He said as he ran his thumb along the curve of her cheek in what he hoped was a soothing manner. She stirred enough to open her eyes for a second. But wound up closing them again since she wasn't actually awake.

Making a frustrated sound in the back of his throat, Bucky then slipped an arm underneath her shoulders and tugged her up in an sitting position and tried again.

He hadn't noticed before now, but Ichigo felt warmer than normal. Far warmer than normal if he wasn't mistaken. Not only that but her skin was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. Her hair and clothing were almost soaked by it.

Muttering a curse under his breath, Bucky laid her back down and then went and grabbed the phone and used the caller ID to find her cousin's number and placed a quick call.

Uryu was helpful, sort of.

He told him that the first thing to do was to find the thermometer and see what her temp was. If she was running a semi low grade fever then she should just sleep it off. But if her temp was higher than one hundred and three then he needed to bring her to the hospital.

Immediately.

Finding the thermometer, Bucky pulled it form it's protective plastic casing and turned it on and then went and placed it in Ichigo's mouth, underneath her tongue and used his hand to keep her mouth closed around it for as accurate a reading as possible.

Once the thing beeped and he pulled it out of her mouth and looked at the number on display, he swore again and then repicked up the phone and told Uryu that he'd be there as soon as possible.

Uryu told him which hospital to bring her to and then told him to call someone with a car. It would be better in the long run. Bucky found that he couldn't exactly disagree with the man there, and then after telling him that he'd be there as soon as possible- he called Tony.

Luckily for him, Stark was on another of his usual late night lab benge's. So he was wide awake when he got the call, though he was more than a little bit rattled when he found out just why Bucky was calling in the first place. Tony told him to wrap his gal up in a blanket and get his ass outside.

A car would be there to pick them up and take them where they needed to go pronto. Of course, what he didn't say was that he'd be waiting in the car when it pulled up barely fifteen minutes later.

The surprise of seeing the billionaire himself in the back seat when the door opened, nearly causing him to drop Ichigo. Thankfully he had some pretty good reflexes from being the Winter Soldier for the past seventy years- so he managed to catch her again before she actually fell and hit something and got hurt.

But the look that Stark was currently giving him didn't bode well for him. And he knew that he was in for an earful as soon as they were totally alone.

"Get in Barnes." The man said as he carefully took his gal from him and then slid himself further into the car so that he could get in. Bucky did as he was told, but he didn't have to like it.

Once the door was shut and the vehicle started moving again, Bucky heard Stark ask what had happened to make Ichigo so sick. To be honest, Bucky had a few suspicions as to the cause. But didn't care to voice them at the moment. He was too worried that his gal was going to lose a leg or something.

Tony seemed to understand, because he dropped the subject fairly quickly and merely said as if he were trying to comfort him, "She'll be okay Barnes. Our girl is tougher than she looks."

Bucky turned his head to look at him. He wanted to snap at him because there was no damned way that he could actually know that for sure, but he wound up biting his tongue instead. Especially after seeing the man's expression. He wasn't scared. He was just a little bit upset. Almost resigned.

But he wasn't scared.

That fact sort of made Bucky feel a little bit better. Well, not totally, especially since he likely wasn't going to hear the end of it from Uryu, Hime and Steve already as it was. But it did make him feel a little bit better about the situation.

Barely twenty minutes later, their car pulled up to the ER where Uryu was waiting for them with a gurney and a whole team of nurses ready to take care of Ichigo.

Bucky slid himself out of the car and moved aside for a moment or so, so that Tony could climb out. And stepped forward again to take Ichigo from him and make it easier for him to get out. Once that was done, he watched as Tony moved the blanket his sweet girl was wrapped in, aside for a moment so that he could press a kiss to her forehead and mutter something barely audible before he moved out of the way.

As her cousin pushed the gurney over and the man and the nurses practically stole her from Bucky's arms and laid her on the make shift bed and began to check her vitals and attach an IV to her the crook of her good arm before Uryu told them to go ahead and take her.

He'd follow them in a second.

Once they were on their way inside, Uryu turned his attention to Bucky and walked over to him. Bucky tensed up expecting a good punch to the face or something for not taking better care of his girl, but instead the man simply put a hand on his shoulder and said softly, "You did good. Her vitals are still stable, so the only thing that concerns me at this point is how bad the possible infection has become and whether or not she'll respond right away to antibiotics. Above all things, we have to keep the infection from spreading to her heart. So you did good. Let me and my team worry about everything else from here. You just stick close by in case she wakes up and wants you with her, okay."

Bucky blinked at him, his kind and comforting words causing his eyes to burn a little bit in a way that was familiar to how he usual felt when he was about to start bawling his eyes out.

He felt wholly unworthy of the man's kindness. Like he had failed in the most fundamental way.

He was supposed to take care of her and keep her from doing anything that could push back her healing process. And he had failed at that. He'd failed her. Guilt ate away at him and he didn't know what he should do. He felt torn. He didn't feel right about being there despite his feelings for Ichigo. But at the same time, leaving her right now would be unforgivable.

Wouldn't it?

He was so lost in his thoughts that he never realized that Uryu had left. He didn't even realize that Tony was standing next to him on his cell, talking to someone. Though he was vaguely aware of bits and pieces of his conversation.

"Steve...something happened...Bucky's girl...hospital... He isn't doing too good..."