#specialops

The light was too bright to be dawn when Bucky finally stirred. He blinked, squinting at the unfamiliar calm of Ripley’s bedroom. The sheets were losing their warmth beside him— empty. The overhead fan was still spinning lazily. Birds chirped. For a terrifying second, his body kicked into gear—panic first, logic second. He inhaled. Deep and steady. 

He could hear the cooking show that she always watched in the mornings. She was downstairs. He'd slept through her getting up. His hand scrubbed over his face. Not in shame. Just… surprise. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that. Not post-mission. Not after adrenaline and arguments and the kind of vulnerability that usually kept him wired for days.

It hit him then—he had slept. Like, really slept. He sat up slowly, frowning at the clock beside the bed still playing its nature sounds. Nearly 10. No dream. No sweat. No tensed muscles ready to launch him out of bed. Just a body catching up on the hours it lost while waiting for her to come back. He hit the button on the noise machine to shut it up, and stretched.

And damn it, he felt human. "So that's what sleeping next to a woman who can kill you can do," he muttered to himself, and got out of bed, making it neatly behind him. He brushed his teeth, ran his fingers through his hair to tame it a little, and padded down the stairs, barefoot, bare chested, his sweatpants low on his hips. 

Ripley sat on the couch, hair bundled into a messy bun, wearing one of her oversized hoodies over her sleep shorts and socked feet tucked under her. The cooking channel played while she nursed a mug of something—tea, probably. "Mornin' sleeping beauty." A smile played around her full lips as she said it.

Bucky leaned against the archway, rubbing his eyes again with a dry chuckle. “I slept.”

“Yeah,” Ripley nodded. “You did.” 

"Did you?" He asked, moving into the kitchen, eyeing her over the kitchen island as he set his coffee makings up. She didn't answer right away. "Rip?"

"Yeah." She nodded again, mug of tea cradled in her hands, eyes staring at the painting on the wall across from her. Bucky didn't press, merely poured his water into the coffee dripper, watching it bloom, adding more, bloom again. He had found the YouTube video she had watched before she had left. His coffee had been next to perfect ever since. 

“Do you remember that recipe we said we were gonna try to make?” Bucky said, lifting his coffee to breathe in the smell. She didn’t respond. “Y’know,” he lifted his voice a little, thinking he had been too soft spoken. “It was that lady who does the ‘how easy is that,’ which is bullshit ‘cuz it doesn’t look easy… it was an oven dish, I mean it might be too hot for that…”

No reaction. Just that same still posture.

Bucky frowned and walked over to the couch. “Hey.”

His voice was right next to her. She jolted, nearly spilling her tea. “Jesus Christ!” She set the mug down, her heart thundering in her ears. "Warn me next time."

“Been talkin’ to you for the last forty seconds,” Bucky said lightly, sitting down beside her. He shifted, laying his bare arm along the back of the couch, fingers brushing the hood of her sweatshirt. 

Ripley gave a breathy laugh and scrubbed a hand down her face. “Guess I was in the zone.”

“Yeah,” he murmured. He tapped his fingers against his mug, glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. The cooking show host was cheerfully talking about store bought being fine as if there was anything else, but neither of them were really listening.

"Barefoot Contessa," Ripley told him, pointing her finger at the TV. "I grew up watching her, she's the OG." 

"Hmmm." Bucky took a sip of his coffee studying her profile. "You wanna do something?" He asked her casually. 

She turned her head toward him, eyebrow arching. “Like?”

“An exercise.”

“Like, sprints? Deadlifts?” Her brows furrowed down, Bucky licked his lips, fighting a smile.

“It’s called soul gazing.”

“That sounds dumb,” Ripley snorted, sliding her hands into the sleeves of her hoodie. “Really dumb.”

“C’mon, Rip.” He set his mug on the coffee table, his tone infuriatingly calm. “Face me.”

“Why?” Ripley watched him with a little sneer as he shifted his body toward her.

“Consider it a trust exercise,” he said, tapping his hand lightly to the side of her bare thigh.

Her eyes narrowed. “What the hell does that mean—?”

“C’mon, get your legs up.” When she didn’t move fast enough for his liking, he reached out—warm hand sliding under her knees. She yelped as he lifted and turned her, placing her legs over his lap, one on each side. Suddenly much closer than she expected, hoodie riding up a little, thighs snug against his bare side.

“Hey!” she blurted, trying to scramble back. But his hands came to rest firmly on her arms, steady but gentle.

“I trust you,” he said quietly. “Don’t you trust me?”

She scowled, with a look that could’ve peeled paint off the goddamn wall. Her pulse thudded in her throat. She nodded once—tight, restrained.

“Then do this with me,” Bucky said, voice softer now. “And stop squirming around. Look into my eyes.”

Ripley huffed, but shifted enough to plant her elbows on her thighs, leaning forward until their faces were only inches apart. Her hoodie bunched around her hips. Her breath hitched. “For how long?” she muttered, eyes darting between his.

“Until I say stop,” Bucky replied, and locked in.

And holy shit did he lock in.

“What is it even supposed to do—”

“Shut up, Ripley.” 

Her mouth closed. Not in offense. Not even defiance. Just something closer to stunned silence. Her brows twitched slightly, like her brain was still scrambling to keep the moment at arm’s length.

But then she saw it—Not just his eyes. What was behind them.

The softness. The war. The quiet ache that never left him. Not pain, exactly. Just that ghost of it. The kind that curled into the corners of a man’s mouth even when he smiled.

She swallowed thickly.

Bucky didn’t blink. Not once.

That blue locked her in like a steady sniper scope, zeroed and patient. His fingers twitched where they rested on her thighs, but otherwise he didn’t move. Just watched her. Drank her in. Let her see him, the way he rarely allowed anyone to. The way he hadn’t, maybe ever.

She wanted to look away. God, she needed to. But she didn’t. Instead, her legs—still folded around him, warm and grounded—tightened just slightly in instinct. Anchoring.

His voice broke the silence again, low. Raw. “I don’t know how to be this,” he said. “Whatever this is.”

Ripley blinked, once. “What?”

He exhaled, chest rising slowly. “Normal. Gentle. Happy.” A pause. Then her hand, almost shy, lifted from the hoodie sleeve and found the edge of his jaw. She didn’t cup it. Didn’t hold him. Just… touched. A whisper of skin-to-skin like she was scared he’d disappear if she pushed too hard.

“You don’t have to be anything,” she murmured. “Not for me. Not for anyone.”

His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "Rip." His fingers tightened on her thighs, he moved them up an inch or two. "Tell me to stop." He whispered, his breath ghosting across her lips. 

She hadn't moved her gaze, hadn't shied from the glacial blue eyes that were now mostly black pupil.

"I did that once," she murmured, her hands went to his forearms—flesh and metal. "I'm not doing that again." 

He let out a shaky breath, his flesh hand moved and cupped the side of her face and he closed the distance. It wasn't gentle, it didn't need to be. Bucky’s hand slid from her cheek to the back of her neck, pulling her in.

The kiss was hungry—his tongue sweeping into her mouth before she had a chance to adjust. Her hoodie bunched between them as she leaned into him, lips parting under the weight of him, the want of him. His metal hand gripped her thigh, steady and grounding, while his flesh hand threaded into her hair like he was holding onto the only real thing in the room.

Her legs tightened around his hips in a subtle shift—instinctual, anchoring, dangerous. His breath stuttered when her hips tilted just slightly. With something between a groan and a moan, he dragged her onto his lap.

“Hold on,” he grunted, shoving a pillow out of his way. His hands went back into her hair, pulling her down again like a man starved.

Her mouth left his, lips hot and open against the column of his throat, tongue dragging over his Adam’s apple. He cursed under his breath. His skin burned under her, muscles flexing. She felt it in the way his hips pushed up into her instinctively.

He shoved her hoodie up, his hands gliding over warm, soft flesh. One hand skimmed the underside of her breast, worshipping and possessive all at once, while the other found the curve of her ass and squeezed. In one fluid motion, he flipped them—laying her flat on the couch cushions, the movement so sudden he knocked the coffee table with his foot.

Crash.

A mug hit the hardwood and shattered.

Ripley managed a strangled laugh that ended on a moan as he ducked under her hoodie, his mouth sealing over her breast, his metal hand palming the other with a low rumble in his chest.

“Bucky—” she gasped, half-laughing, half-winded, clinging to his shoulders. Her legs wrapped higher, locking around his hips, and his pelvis dropped into hers with a slow, filthy grind that sent lightning down her spine. Her head dropped back—she could feel the thick, rigid length of him.

His hand slid down between them, pressed his palm to her center—he could feel the wet heat of her, and groaned. His fingers curled into the waistband of her shorts. His free hand shoved her hoodie up beneath her chin, cupped her breast as he feasted on her mouth.

“Hey Rip, do you have tequila?”

Wick’s voice shattered the moment from the foyer. “Your golden boy Captain America is bringing beer, but I want a big, thick marg—JESUS CHRIST!”

"What the fuck!" Ripley jolted against Bucky trying to shove him away as her teammate scrambled to turn away from where he had just seen. She let out a frustrated growl. "Wickwire!" 

"Oh my god," Wick turned his back on them. "What the fuck is happening?"

"What's wrong with you?" Bennett looked around him. "Oh my god!" He backed up into the wall. "No, no, no!" He held his his hands as Flea entered the house. "Stay put." 

“All of you. Out.” Ripley’s voice was a choked mix of fury and panic. She scrambled to pull her hoodie back down, fingers fumbling. But Bucky was faster—gentler. He brushed her hands aside, smoothed the fabric into place himself, then framed her face in both hands, thumbs brushing her cheeks.

““I’m sorry,” Ripley blurted, breath still shaky. “I’m so sorry—I got carried—”

“Hey. It’s okay.” Bucky’s voice was low and steady, even if his pulse wasn’t. “It’s okay.” He leaned in and kissed her—quick, grounding—like he could freeze time and rewind it all at once.

“Fucking heathens,” Ripley hissed, glaring toward the hallway. Her eyes flicked to the obvious line still visible in his sweatpants. “I’ll kill them.”

Bucky’s lips twitched into a smirk. He ran his thumb along her bottom lip and leaned in again. “We’ve got time.”

“Yeah,” she muttered sulkily, eyes narrowing like a woman plotting war. She watched him disappear into the hallway, heard the collective awkward shuffle as her team made room. Then—

“Permission to enter?” Wick called, poking his head in with a wicked grin. He didn’t wait for an answer. He just strolled in, threw the curtains wide, and gasped. “Oh no. Not the Bruins mug!”

“That was ancient,” Flea added solemnly. “Was it worth it?” he asked, flopping dramatically onto the couch. “Ugh, why is this wet?”

“Shut the fuck up! It is not!” Ripley snapped, scarlet creeping up her neck. “What are you doing here?”

“Gumbo,” Wick said simply. “Team dinner? Ring bells?”

“A phone call, Wickwire! A text! Fuck, a carrier pigeon!” Ripley muttered, grabbing paper towels and sopping up the mess. She heard the front door open again—and Sam’s voice rising in greeting.

“Why you look so pissy, man?” Sam asked, clapping Bucky on the back from where he had come down from changing into jeans and a tee shirt. Sam, Bucky, and Torres moved into the kitchen.

“We interrupted,” Wick said without an ounce of shame, already perched at the island like a smug gargoyle.

“Interrupted what?” Sam asked, setting down the case of beer. Bennett gave him a single, arched brow. Sam whipped his head around to Bucky, who was glowering at Bennett like he was considering war crimes. “Buck… my guy.”

“Okay!” Ripley announced, throwing up her hands. “Figure out the grocery list. Wick—the tequila’s in the freezer.” And with that, she vanished up the stairs, two at a time.

As soon as she was out of earshot, five pairs of eyes zeroed in on Bucky like he was the last man standing in a firing squad.

Bennett exhaled, cracked open a beer, and lifted it in a half-assed toast. “We’re all adults,” he said calmly. “Everyone get a beer.” There was a pause as bottles hissed open. Bennett lifted his again. “So, uh, cheers—and thanks for letting Wick and me get an eyeful of our CO’s amazing rack. No bra. Peak performance.”

“Jesus Christ!” Flea choked, face flushing scarlet. “You saw Rip’s tits?”

“Bucky had his face buried in them,” Wick added helpfully, unbothered as ever. “Pretty sure his hand was down her shorts too.”

Sam snorted into his beer. “Damn.”

“Are they perfect?” Flea asked, voice full of boyish awe. “I bet they’re perfect.”

“I bet one’s mismatched,” Bennett said sagely. “Every woman’s got a rogue boob.”

“I, for one…” Torres leaned over and tapped his bottle against Bucky’s untouched beer, tone sincere as ever. “Commend you. Rip’s a catch.”

Bucky’s jaw twitched. He didn’t lift his eyes from the beer bottle, but his ears were glowing red.

“You look like your cyborg brain’s in overdrive,” Sam said lightly, but his eyes weren’t joking—roving over his best friend’s face. “You okay, Buck?”

"Out," Ripley had reermered, jean shorts and a tank top on. Flea's gaze went directly to her chest as if trying to measure and figure out if Bennett was telling hte truth. "Backyard. Time now!" 

"You got it boss," Wick grinned and handed her a beer. Omega hurried out, Ripley closed the door with a snap behind her, and faced the uproarious laughter. 

"You're really gonna let her handle that by herself?" Sam asked Bucky as he leaned back comfortably against the granite counter. "That's pretty cold man." 

"She can handle her team," said Bucky finally taking a long pull of beer to soothe his raw throat. 

Torres studied him for a long moment, and smiled weakly. "Sorry we interrupted." 

"Guys, it's fine…" Bucky scoffed a little. "It's fine." 

"Hey, where's the bathroom in this place?" Torres caught the pointed look Sam had given him. 

"Down the hall on the left," Bucky said absentmindedly, he was watching Omega through the kitchen doors window. His lips thinned as he watched Flea dry hump the air. 

Sam waited until Torres was gone, then leaned his elbows on the counter, voice low. “You know, it’s okay to want something for yourself, right?”

Bucky huffed a small laugh. “You saying you’d pick her?”

“Hell no,” Sam said, laughing. “Woman like that? She’d eat me alive. But you?” He pointed the neck of his beer at Bucky. "You have a fighting chance with someone like her, I haven't seen her with anyone since her ex."

"I've met the ex," Bucky reminded him. "Not hard to beat him. Don't hit a woman and don't sleep with her sister." 

"Yeah," Sam said with a big sigh. "He's an asshole."

“You’ve met him?” Bucky asked, brows lifting.

“Nah,” Sam said, leaning on the counter. “Rip and I got drunk in Afghanistan once, back when things were messy. She doesn’t talk much about the past, but that night? It just came out. Whole damn thing. How he hit her. How her own sister betrayed her. And how she just…left. Packed up, didn’t even take her dog.”

Bucky was quiet, staring into his beer.

Sam’s voice softened. “She didn’t run ‘cause she was weak. She left ‘cause she was strong enough to stop letting people hurt her.” He let that hang a second, then looked at Bucky. “You get that better than most.”

Bucky’s throat bobbed as he nodded. “She deserves better.”

“She does.” Sam nudged him gently with his shoulder. “But so do you.” That made Bucky glance at him. Sam’s voice was steady now, the kind of tone he used when he needed someone to hear him. “You’re allowed to want something for yourself, Buck. Doesn’t have to make sense to anybody else. Doesn’t have to check boxes or fit into some picture-perfect thing. You just gotta ask if it makes you feel more like yourself… or less.”

Bucky didn’t answer right away. But something in his shoulders relaxed.

Sam grinned then, lightening the mood. “That said… Ripley Mother Fucking Todd? Man, you’ve got guts.”

Bucky finally let out a laugh. “She does scare the hell outta you, huh?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Sam said, raising his beer. “That woman has walked through at least six of the nine circles of Hell. I’m not trying to die.”

Bucky clinked his bottle to Sam’s. “Yeah. Me neither.” 

"Real talk," Sam's gaze softened like molten chocolate. "You deserve to be happy—even if it is with a woman who gets waterboarded and still makes a joke about it." 

"So, like definitely a high powered dildo," Bennett asked pointing to his left arm. Ripley loosed a deep sigh. "Just asking because that looked like the hand that was down the front of your shorts."

"Don't ask, don't tell," Wick quipped as he tossed a horseshoe down the lawn. 

"Uh, you can ask, and you can tell now," Flea reminded him, tossed his own shoe. "Does the serum effect the size of his—oh, hey Bucky." 

Bucky didn’t flinch. He just walked past the group with a new beer in hand and a warning in his eyes that could’ve peeled paint. “Nope,” he said flatly, popping the cap and taking a sip. “Not answering that.”

“Oh come on,” Bennett laughed. “You’re telling me the enhanced metabolism, the muscle density, the grip strength—none of that affects—”

“I swear to God,” Ripley warned from her lawn chair, not even looking over from where her head was tipped back, aviators on under her ballcap soaking in the sun. “One more word and I will medically evaluate every single one of you with a knee to the groin.”

Flea clutched an invisible string of pearls. “Why are you so violent?”

“Why are you so horny for your CO?” she shot back, sipping her drink.

Wick grinned. “In Flea’s defense, we all have a power dynamic kink here, am I right?"

"I sure as shit do," Bennett grinned wolfishly at Ripley. Bucky leveled him with a look. "Bucky, man, c'mon, look at her and tell you wouldn't…"

"Enough," said Bucky quietly. 

Ripley lowered her glasses, brown eyes unamused. "Hey, if we're done measuring our dicks—"

"No need, we all know who has the biggest one here," Bennett flashed a smile. "Right, Rip?"

"You are correct," She tipped her head back once more. "I tape that bitch to my knee every morning so it doesn't flop around." 

"Big Dick Toddy,” Wick drawled, setting his horseshoe flying across the yard. It arced high and dropped clean over the stake with a perfect clang. “Yahtzee!” He grinned at the satisfying sound, but his gaze had already drifted. Not to the game. Not even to the beer in his hand. But to the quiet exchange happening just a few feet away.

Bucky stood behind Ripley’s chair, one hand tucked lazily in the pocket of his jeans, the other reaching down to gently tap the brim of her ballcap with two fingers—like he couldn’t not touch her. Ripley tilted her head up with the kind of smile Wick rarely saw outside of deployment reunions—easy, private, just for him.

Then came the brush of Bucky’s knuckles across her cheekbone. Barely there. But Ripley closed her eyes at the contact, leaning into it slightly. And Wick, for all his bravado, felt something give in his chest. Not jealousy. Just… peace.

She was happy.

“They look good together,” Sam’s voice cut through the moment as he wandered over and plucked a horseshoe from the grass near Wick’s pile. His tone was casual, but his eyes were locked on Ripley and Bucky like a hawk. “Whatcha think, Danny?”

Wick didn’t answer right away. He watched as Bucky crouched beside Ripley’s chair, settling on the balls of his feet like he had nowhere else to be, his mouth moving as he said something that made Ripley laugh.

Wick exhaled through his nose. “I think he’ll wreck her heart when he leaves,” he said simply, tossing his next horseshoe. It missed by a mile. “And we’ll be here to pick up the pieces.”

Sam scoffed, but there was no heat in it. “You think he’s the one who leaves?” he asked, raising a brow. “Nah, man. Buck’s too loyal for that. Ride or die.”

“And Ripley isn’t?” Wick turned fully to face him now, horseshoe game completely forgotten. “You think you understand her because you’ve seen her in the field, but you don’t. You don’t know what she does for the people she loves.”

Sam’s brow lifted with interest. “You tellin’ me she loves him?”

Wick didn’t answer right away. Instead, he motioned subtly toward the pair. Bucky had leaned in closer now, and Ripley was murmuring something low. She reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear, and his hand followed the movement, brushing along the line of her jaw. The touch wasn’t sexual—it was reverent. Familiar. Like he was reminding himself she was real.

“You know anyone else who could walk over to her and touch her like that?” Wick asked, voice low. “I could—you probably could. But no one else here can. And that includes every dumbass in that house.”

Sam’s mouth curved. “Bet,” he said, handing off his beer. “Torres! C’mere!”

Torres jogged over from the shaded porch where he’d been nursing a beer and trying very hard to stay out of everyone’s business. “Yeah?”

“Do me a favor,” Sam said, casual as ever, like he wasn’t about to launch Torres into a social suicide mission. “So I can win a bet. Go touch Rip.”

Torres blinked, confused. “What?”

“Just casual,” Sam shrugged, all nonchalant. “Friendly-like. Hand on the shoulder, pat on the back. You know. Bro stuff.”

Wick folded his arms across his chest, a devilish glint in his eye. “C’mon, Torres. You like to live dangerously, right?”

“I mean… yeah?” Torres hesitated, looking between the two of them. “What happens if she stabs me?”

“She won’t stab you,” Sam said, with the confidence of a man who absolutely could not guarantee that. “I don’t see a knife on her.”

Wick snorted. “She doesn’t need a knife. She is the weapon.”

Still wearing that uncertain but game-for-anything smile, Torres adjusted his shirt and started across the lawn. Ripley had leaned back again, legs stretched out, sunglasses in place, chin tilted toward the sun, sipping her beer. She looked serene—an illusion as fragile as glass.

Torres crouched beside her on the opposite side of Bucky, who sat on the grass with his back to Wick and Sam, arm resting lazily across his knee, watching Bennett and Flea wrestle in the corner. "Lookin' good Flea!" He shouted as Bennett all but launched the smaller man off of him into the dirt. "Real strong!" He added a slow clap.

“Hey, Rip,” Torres said cheerfully, trying to channel maximum non-threatening energy. He dropped a hand casually onto her thigh.

"Oooooo too high," hissed Wick under his breath to Sam.

Torres wasn’t entirely sure what happened first—Bucky’s glacial look and slow rise to his feet, or Ripley’s hand snapping forward with surgical precision, grabbing his wrist, rolling it into a joint lock that dropped him to both knees in the grass as she rose to her feet.

“Ow ow ow— okay, okay!” Torres blurted, frozen like someone had hit pause on his brain. “I just—uh—Sam—uh—bet—”

Ripley's eyes narrowed, dark with annoyance behind her Ray Bans. “What. Are you. Doing.”

Torres pointed weakly with his free hand toward Sam and Wick, who were now absolutely doubled over near the porch, barely able to breathe through their laughter. 

Sam hollered, “It was for science!”

Wick wheezed, “You proved my point!”

Ripley exhaled a sharp sigh and let go of Torres’s wrist, shoving him back with a flick. “Joaquin. Don’t ever just walk up and touch a woman like that. You ask. Especially when she’s resting.”

Torres scrambled to his feet, rubbing his wrist, eyes wide with embarrassment. “Yes ma’am.”

“Especially this one,” Bucky added coolly, stepping closer, his stance protective in that barely-contained-ex-assassin way. “And not around me, Joaquin.”

“Noted!” Torres nodded, turning on his heel and beelining back across the lawn like his ass was on fire.

Ripley shook her head and adjusting her ballcap with one hand and raising the other to point directly at Sam and Wick. “You two. Apologize. Now.”

“Sorry, Torres!” Sam called out, not even trying to sound sincere, still half bent over with laughter.

“Yeah, real heartfelt,” Ripley muttered, reclaiming her seat with a huff.

Wick, still chuckling, called after the younger man, “You took it like a champ, Airman! That’s a story for your grandkids.”

“Assuming I can hold my grandkids after she broke my damn wrist,” Torres mumbled, flopping dramatically onto a chair.

"I didn't do it that hard!" Ripley called after him. "Spilled my beer too," she muttered with a pout. 

"You want another?" Bucky asked. "I'm going in for one." 

Sam made his way over to Ripley, holding up both hands in surrender. “Alright, alright, bad call. But technically, you didn’t stab him, so I was right.”

Ripley gave him a deadpan look over the rim of her sunglasses. “You wanna be next Captain America?" 

Sam put a hand to his chest, feigning offense. “Whoa now. You threatening national icons on a Sunday afternoon?”

Ripley leaned back with a lazy shrug. “Only the dumb ones." Wick wandered off. "What?"

"Grocery list." He said. "After all we did cockblock you for a reason."

"It better be the best gumbo I've ever tasted," Bucky said as he got to his feet. He held a hand down to help Ripley out of the chair. 

"I don't think anything would compare to what I'm sure the sweetest tasting pu—" Bennett began with a sardonic smirk.