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There’s no fanfare when it happens. They do what they always do, and at some point John takes a hit to the gut and doubles over with a gasp. Ten feet away, Bucky does the same, but he's already dispatched the last of his opponents, and there is no one near him. Across the small distance, their eyes catch, and John instinctively knows what has happened.
As much as Bucky professes that there is no such thing as wizards, the truth of the matter is that their world does now include magic users of several varieties. Or John supposes it always has, but now the world is aware of it.
Whatever happened, they've been bonded in some way. Not just linked, no- John can feel it deeper than that, like Bucky had been plugged into his soul.
Beyond that awareness, and the ability to feel when the other is in pain, the bond doesn't do much. They consult the Sorcerer Supreme of New York, but even Wong can't figure out how to break it.
“It's unlike anything I've ever seen before,” Wong says with a shake of his head after he's examined them.
Behind them, Stephen Strange flips through an ancient-looking book. “What about-”
Wong shakes his head. “Not enough energy.”
“Or-”
“Tried that. Slipped right through.”
Strange pauses, a look of interest on his face. “Really?”
Wong nods. “Whatever this is, it's outside any of our magics.”
Strange closes the book in his hands with a snap. “Intriguing. And frustrating.”
John follows the back-and-forth silently. “So… I'm guessing this means we're not getting separated today.”
“Or likely ever,” Wong says, a hint of regret etched into his tone. “I've never seen anything like it," he reiterates. "The fact that I can see it- ah, for a loose definition of ‘see’- means I should be able to affect it. But everything I've tried just slips right through.” There's a long pause. “Also, it's anchored into your souls and I'm afraid if I yank it out it will cause them to bleed, which would kill you.”
“Might be worth it,” Bucky mutters from John’s left.
John glares at him, but doesn’t waste his breath calling the other man an asshole. They've made their feelings for each other quite clear over the last several months.
They can work together, but they'll never be friends. John feels a brief flash of regret at that, then stifles it ruthlessly.
Next to him, Bucky stiffens. “What was that?” His gaze fixes on John with unnerving intensity.
John's brow furrows in confusion. “What was what?”
“I felt something.”
“Guess there is a first time for everything,” John mutters. Bucky’s glare deepens. John smiles back innocently.
Wong turns his face away for a moment, but not before John catches the quick upturn of one side of his mouth. He clears his throat. “Mr. Barnes is right. I saw a quick flare in the bond, before it died.” His gaze shifts between the two of them. “I thought you said the only thing you've felt from it is each other’s physical pain.”
“That is it,” John says firmly, holding the sorcerer's gaze.
“...Right.” Wong's gaze shifts to behind them. “Unfortunately gentlemen, it seems you are stuck with this. I can try to do some more research, but honestly? I don’t have much hope for a solution.”
“Great,” Bucky mutters, already standing.
John follows, and tries to swallow down his disappointment. “Thank you for your time.” He starts to hold out his hand, but stops halfway through the gesture, unsure if it was polite to shake the hand of the Sorcerer Supreme.
Wong takes pity on him and meets him half way. “I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help. Take care.”
“Thanks.” John heads for the door, where Bucky is already impatiently waiting. “You too.”
They let themselves back out into the cold. Neither of them talk to the other the whole way back to the Tower.
Over time, the bond becomes more of a nuisance than an actual problem. They get good at differentiating between when an injury is their own, or an echo from the other person.
The flip side of that is that it doesn't let them hide an injury.
John gets shot at some point- through-and-through, not near anything vital, nothing to worry about- and he legitimately forgets about it.
Bucky comes up to him after the battle is over. “You need to get your arm checked.” He says it like he does most things, like compliance is a given, not an option.
John squints up at him, sweat stinging his eyes, sun halo-ing Bucky’s head. He looks like a pissed off angel. There's a knife held loosely in one hand. “What?”
The frown Bucky constantly wears around him deepens. “Your arm,” he enunciates. “Get it looked at.” He gestures toward John's left side with the knife. “You don't want to lose it, do you?”
“Concern Barnes? From you?” John stands from his place on the steps he'd been sitting on. “Or are you just scared of what people will say if we match?” He gives his arm a little wriggle. Blood drips down his arm and off his fingertips. Shit, maybe it is more serious than he thought. The pain hits him then, sudden and sharp, and John realizes that the adrenaline must have been masking it. “Shit.”
Barnes doesn't flinch. Which makes sense since that arm is missing. Though it does make John wonder something else: how did Bucky feel it if his own left arm is missing? As far as John knows, Bucky can’t feel pain through the vibranium, just heat and pressure. John briefly wonders if that means he will always be a little more or a little less broken on their shared pain scale.
John goes to see the Tower medic as soon as they get back rather than have Bucky attempt to lecture him again.
It probably also didn't help that Barnes is almost constantly in pain, especially where his arm melds into flesh. After John realizes that's the constant aches that he feels, he figures he'd probably be grumpy all of the time too. It gets to a point where John will absently rub at the top and back of his shoulder.
He doesn't realize that Bucky didn't know he could feel that particular ache until the other man asks if he's hurt. They're one day post mission, and John had fallen through a ceiling onto the floor below, so the question isn't unfounded. Bucky has caught on to John’s penchant for hiding injuries he considers insignificant and likes to ream him out for it, like the man doesn’t do the same thing.
Hypocrite.
“Hm? No?” John replies, flipping to the next page of his book. “Just the usual ache.”
The air in the room grows still. At some point over the last several months, they've started to gravitate toward each other, something about the shared pain lessening their personal grudges. They're in John's living room at the moment, Bucky having let himself in and made himself comfortable in John's recliner while John had been distracted by making himself a sandwich.
John is squished into the corner of his sofa, half-sunk into the pillows, bare feet propped on his coffee table. The silence is heavy enough to pull his attention away from his book and meet Bucky’s heavy blue gaze. “I thought we fixed your staring problem,” he jokes.
“It's only a problem for other people.” Bucky peels himself from the recliner and comes to stand behind him. “Show me where the pain is.”
Heat pickles along the back of John’s neck. “It's fine.” He pretends to go back to his book.
A second later, a dark metal hand obscures the words he is trying to read. When he meets Bucky’s eyes over his shoulder, they're much closer than he's expecting. His heart takes an off beat. “What?” he asks, tone harsher than he means it to be.
“Show me.”
John sighs noisily, then presses his thumb into place in his book and uses his opposite hand to indicate a line over his shoulder. “Here to here. Happy now?”
Bucky frowns. “Ecstatic.” He doesn't move from his spot behind John.
Deciding that if he ignores him long enough he'll get bored, John returns to his book again. A moment later, a metal thumb digs into a spot just above his shoulder blade where the pain is the most noticeable. A soft noise escapes him before he catches it.
Both men freeze.
“What are you doing?” John asks carefully.
Bucky prods at another spot. “I didn't know you could feel it.” His thumb slides down along the back of John’s soldier.
“Feel what?”
“The ache where my arm connects to my body.” The thumb rubs in a small circle, easing the knot there. “I thought the bond only applied to new pain.” The book falls to John’s lap, his grasp limp as he subtly angles his body, asking Bucky without words to move lower along his shoulder blade. “You've felt like this the entire time?”
“Mmhmm.” John hums as Bucky obliges his silent request.
The fingers of Bucky’s other hand joins the metal ones already on John's back, smoothing their way down his spine. “Why didn't you say anything?”
“Thought you knew,” John sighs as tension from another knot is released. Both of Bucky’s hands shift until he can dig his thumbs into either side of John's neck near the top of his spine, right at the C7. “Oh, god,” John moans. He clamps a hand over his mouth too late.
Bucky’s hands stop, but he doesn't pull away. After a few moments his hands start to move again, this time up John's neck until Bucky has one big hand cupping his jaw, thumb pressed just below his ear. Bucky’s metal hand, warm now from John’s body heat, encircles John's throat from the front, pressing in slightly.
“Yeah?” His voice is rough and dark with promise, and John immediately comprehends what Bucky is asking.
John only takes a second to think about his answer. “Yeah.” The fingers of Bucky’s left hand tighten minutely, and somehow John knows it's in approval.
Bucky’s right hand releases John's chin and slides down his chest to rest firmly over one of John's pecs. John's only in a dark blue tank top, so it's easy for Bucky to slip his hand underneath the material of his shirt, fingers sliding through coarse chest hair before resting over one of John’s pecs and squeezing. Then he pinches a nipple.
They both moan at the sensation. John leans his head back against the cushions to look up at Bucky. Already he can feel sweat gathering at his temples, his breath coming faster as pleasure builds. “Did you…?”
“Yeah,” Bucky breaths, voice raw.
From inches apart, they stare at one another, both breathing heavily, and then Bucky slams his lips down onto John’s, pressing in painfully. The kiss is ferocious, biting and rough. It’s also incredibly awkward. After several moments, John raises his hands, scrabbling at Bucky’s shoulders and tugging at him until he gets the hint and disengages the kiss to climb over the back of the sofa next to John.
Immediately, John fumbles his way upright to straddle Bucky’s lap, diving back in for another of those biting kisses. Every nip is a feedback loop of pain and pleasure. Hands scrabble and tear at cloth until they’re both shirtless. John moves to Bucky’s neck, biting and sucking marks onto his skin. Through their bond, he feels the pinch of teeth along the tendon of his own neck.
Bucky’s fingers scrape over the skin of John’s back, sending a shiver through both of them. One hand goes to John’s chest to pinch and pull at a nipple again. The other slides its way down the back of John’s pants. He isn’t polite about what he does next, delving between John’s cheeks to find his hole and pushing a fingertip inside.
The sensation of being breached sends a shiver up John’s spine, and underneath him, Bucky moans. “Fuck, that’s…” Whatever it is, Bucky doesn’t say. Instead, he pushes in deeper, forcing John’s body to open for him.
It burns, but John is so used to pain now that his body has a hard time differentiating it as something to be avoided. John grips the back of the sofa and rocks against Bucky, grinding their still-clothed erections together, and causing them to both moan once again.
Bucky removes the hand from John’s pants, who whimpers at the loss of contact. “Shh.” Bucky lays a soothing hand on John’s cheek. “Get your jeans off,” he orders hoarsely.
John scrambles to comply, and soon he’s completely naked in front of Bucky. On the contrary, Bucky sprawls among the cushions, shirtless, pants open, dick standing proud as he lazily jerks it, storm-blue eyes focused on John.
Not wasting any time, John crawls back into Bucky’s lap, swatting his hand away from his cock and replacing it with his own. Hastily, he lines Bucky up with his entrance, rubbing it over the small hole a few times to spread some of the precum leaking from the tip over it before slowly sinking down on the thick cock.
“John, wait,” Bucky tries to say, but he’s too late, and the head of his cock is past the first ring of tight muscle.
Panting, John forces himself to stay still for a moment. Bucky’s cock inside him burns, almost more than he can bear, but at the same time, John wants more. He needs it- needs the stretch, the burn, the pain. Bucky’s hands clutch at his hips, more bright spots lighting up his consciousness, and John knows he’ll have bruises in the shape of those fingers after they’re done, at least for a little while.
Vaguely, as John works himself further down on Bucky’s cock, he remembers not being into pain at all. The thought of causing it in a partner was distasteful, and he’d never really desired it for himself. But now, months of feeling Bucky’s constant aches tingle their way up his spine, feeling every wound turn sweet, John doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to live without it.
Once John is fully seated, Bucky holds him there for several long minutes. “God, I can feel me inside you- how much it burns to hold me inside you.”
John bites at Bucky’s lips. “Yeah. Great isn’t it?” He offers the other man a feral grin.
“Yeah,” Bucky agrees, then tightens his grip even more on John’s hips to hold him in place and fucks up into him.
It’s quick, edging on brutal. John claws at Bucky’s back and shoulders, opening up bright, thin red lines wherever he touches, and making him moan when he feels the scratches reverberate on his own back.
Soon, the pain and pleasure come to a head, and on one perfect thrust, John’s head falls back as he comes with a loud moan between them. He clamps down forcefully on the dick inside him, which causes Bucky to lose control, giving a few short frantic thrusts before he comes inside the warm body above him.
They spend several minutes afterwards tangled together on the couch, sweat cooling on their bodies as they both try to catch their breath. When they do finally stand from the furniture, they both grimace as tight muscles are forced to unwind, and the burn that had felt so good in the moment becomes almost unbearable.
John frowns as he hobbles his way to the bathroom, the feeling of Bucky’s cum sliding out his ass and cooling on its way down his thigh a distinctly unpleasant sensation. “Well, that was a fucking stupid idea,” he says as he turns on the shower. There’s a jolt from under his ribcage as he leans over, and he thinks he must have pulled a muscle.
“Yeah,” Bucky agrees quietly, from just outside the door, rubbing a hand over his sternum.