I'm in the requesting mood for Bear!Price and oblivious 141 private!Reader!
Where Reader is a private within the 141, and scared of Captain Price, and doesn't realise that the friendly bear that she gives head scratches to is actually their Captain!
Cue them running away to quickly fill a transfer form when Canine!Soap enlightens reader about who the bear is :(
i interpreted this as Price and Soap being shifters rather than hybrids, which made for a fun dynamic to mess around with. also, the concept of reader being totally chill with a whole ass bear but freaked out by Price is insanely funny to me lmao
also Price calls reader 'kid'
2.2k words
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Captain John Price scared the hell out of you from the moment you met him. It was in the middle of the street at night, where a trafficking ring had caused an uproar with a failed kidnapping. The whole situation escalated, two different military squads were called in to bust it up, and a firefight broke out before any of the disgruntled civilians could wake up enough to figure out what was going on.
You were aiding in getting as many unharmed civilians out of the line of fire when your current commander barked at you to head east and meet the captain from the other task force, something about him needing more backup than he had planned. Being fresh meat, just a private with six months of experience, you were the first disposable soldier that could be sent Price’s way.
You didn’t expect any hello’s or pleasant greetings, but you most certainly weren’t expecting Price to clamp his hand down on the back of your neck and shove you into the nearest building to debrief with his task force. Not having the same line of comms as him meant that you had to stick next to the captain while the streets were raided. All orders from him were growled, and he forcefully moved you when you didn’t act fast enough for his liking. It was safe to say that he quickly gave the impression of being someone you didn’t want to cross.
When your own small team was left with only three low ranking members at the end of the night, yourself included, the hasty decision to dissolve and disperse the remaining soldiers was made. Due to proximity, and a very bedraggled Price being hounded by higher ups, you were tossed right into the hands of the 141. So when your new captain clapped his hand on your shoulder and steered you towards one of his humvees, grumbling out a “C’mon, Kid. You’re with me for now”, you had no choice but to follow along with big eyes and a fastly beating heart.
You got along with most of the task force. Ghost tolerated you. Gaz was at least friendly, and Soap immediately treated you like you had been a teammate since the beginning. Price still intimidated you to no end, but he was nothing short of cordial. It was your third day in the new base when you learned that a part of your team were shifters.
You had stopped into the armory early to get ahead on your duties when you were met with the sight of some sort of dog nosing around in one of the duffel bags on the floor. Assuming it was a literal animal that had somehow wandered into the base, you led it all the way to Ghost. They both let you stumble over your words for a hot minute until Ghost pointed at the thing and said: “It’s just Soap. Bloody mutt shifted this morning and is refusing to turn back. Leave him with me, Private.”
From then on, you were a lot calmer about the occasional animal you would see tromping around base. Your absolute favorite, though, was this humongous grizzly bear that always seemed to be hanging out in the commons. The thing was always lazing around and letting passersby give it a scritch behind the ears. It was only so long before you found yourself in a routine of patting the bear every time you came across it.
Not once did it ever cross your mind that you never saw the bear in the same room as Price. You always assumed that your captain was busy with paperwork or meetings with higher ups, and no one batted an eye when the bear would wander into the briefing room and plop down beside you, head already shoving at your thigh in a demand for scratches. You just figured this guy was someone adjacent to the 141 and left it at that.
Of course, everyone else knew who the bear really was. They had watched with humored expressions when Price would saunter up and grunt at you, pawing and nosing at your legs until he earned himself a good rub behind the ears. It always seemed to happen when you were feeling overwhelmed or generally not in a good mood. And about thirty minutes after every one-on-one encounter you had with your captain, the bear would seek you out and request pets until your heart rate had calmed and hands were no longer shaky.
You had had a particularly long morning meeting with Price one day, detailing your progress with the task force and what needed to be improved upon. There was no scolding involved, but you still left the room feeling like a child that had got in trouble. With nothing to do for the next hour, you settled yourself on the couch in the common room to take a well-deserved rest. Lo and behold, you had just started to drift off when a very warm and wet nose nudged against your neck.
You startled for a second, relaxing immediately when you recognized the fluffy face of the bear. Your hand automatically went to its head, like it had trained you to pet it on sight, but it shook you away before clambering onto the couch with you. Fight as much as you wanted, but not even the most well trained soldier would be able to push the weight of a stubborn bear off of their body. Smushed underneath about 300 pounds of fur and fat, you were resolved to take your nap with a nose under your chin and heavy paws pinning your limbs down.
Price watched you fall asleep, taking in every detail about your being. He watched your lashes flutter when you dreamed and felt the slow rise and fall of your chest underneath him. The only giveaway as to how stressed you felt in the moment was the way your hand was buried in his thick pelt, palm splayed across the curve of his spine. Once he felt your muscles loosen, Price allowed himself to close his own eyes and fall asleep as well.
Neither of you woke up until Soap barged in. Very groggily, the bear rolled off of you and stretched with a whining yawn, giving you one last nose to the cheek before making its way out of the room. Soap took the bear’s place on the couch, lifting your legs and letting them rest in his lap as he sipped from a coffee mug.
“Bear wouldn’t let me get up,” you explained to Soap in a croaky voice. “It was like it insisted on taking a nap directly on top of me.”
“Yeah, that’s just how the Cap is,” he replied with a chuckle. All the muscles in your body tensed, and your eyes snapped to Soap’s. Cap? As in Captain, like Price? Soap just kept giggling at your boggled expression. “What? Didn’t think you were special, did you? He naps wherever he wants to, the big bloke…”
“Are you telling me,” you got out slowly, “that the bear I’ve been pretty much cooing over for the past few months is Price?”
“Well, yeah,” Soap nodded, brows furrowing. “I thought you’d have figured it out by now, especially with how much you’ve been pettin’ all up on him. Price’ll be disappointed it took you this long to piece it together.”
“He’s never going to know,” you mumbled as you swung your legs off the couch to stand up. With a head reeling about how you had been doting over your terrifying Captain without even realizing it, you quickly trotted out of the room and down the hall with one purpose in mind: Get the hell off of this task force.
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(lil bonus that wasn't a part of the ask but i could not leave this unresolved)
All Price saw when he exited his office was the flash of you disappearing around the corner, Soap hot on your heels. His mouth was open to ask what the hell was going on, but Soap was quicker to answer the unspoken question, panting out his words as he jogged by. “The lass didn’t know you were the bear! Get your arse up here and explain yourself ‘fore they make any rash decisions.”
The halls in the base were all interconnected, so Soap and Price cut you off before you could make it to the Department of Transfers. Soap nearly tackled you down with how roughly he stopped you by your shoulders, bumbling out a whole slew of words that you couldn’t pick apart. His accent really did get thicker when he was in a rush…
“Soap, get off ‘em,” Price barked before wiping his face with a sigh. You stiffened when he turned to look at you, his face holding the same sort of steeliness and determination that was there the first time you met him. It was just a tad softer now, however, with how his eyebrows weren’t as pinched and mouth turned upwards in a humored grimace.
“Kid, did you really not know it was me? Never considered the fact that I’ve never been in the same room as the bear?” he asked, voice almost soft enough to be a whisper. He was talking to you like you would take off at any given moment. Honestly, you probably would have if you weren’t scared of getting run down again.
Soap saw the way you nonverbally answered Price, saw how rigidly you shook your head and how your hands were curled into fists at the bottom of your shirt. He nudged your hip with his own to get your attention but kept his eyes on the man standing across from you. “He was only making you pet him ‘cause that’s the only time you’d pay attention to him. Hurt his big ego to have his new Private shun him constantly.” “It did not hurt my ego,” Price argued, giving Soap a quick glare before fixing you with a soft gaze once more. “He’s right, though. I mean, Christ, kid… you’d think I’d put you through the wringer with how you scamper away from me any chance you get. I thought you just liked me as a bear better.”
You started to say that no, you didn’t like Price better as a bear. You only thought the bear was someone else entirely and that you were deathly terrified of Price in general. Nevertheless, you knew it was an idiotic thing to tell someone of a higher rank that you were scared of them, so you kept your mouth firmly shut. The look on your face spoke for you, though. Big eyes, slightly downturned mouth, and a pulled back brow told Price all he needed to know.
He moved slowly, giving you plenty of time to pull away, as he placed his hands on your upper shoulders. Price felt the muscles there contract before relaxing, waiting for your body to recognize that you weren’t in danger as his thumbs rubbed up and down. “I take the comfort of my soldiers very seriously. No one on this team should feel fear around each other,” he paused, sparing a sideways glance down the hall in the direction of the Department of Transfers. “If it’s what you really want, I’d rather you be on a team that you want to work with than stuck following orders only because you’re scared of me.”
“No,” you blurted out quick enough to make Soap snort. Even Price looked pleasantly surprised, eyebrows raising as the side of his mouth turned up. The mortification you felt earlier was starting to creep back in, heating your cheeks and turning your ears a light scarlet. “I wasn’t going to leave because you scare me. It’s more of an ‘I’m embarrassed that I’ve been treating my Captain like a puppy for the last two months’ sort of thing. Isn’t that weird for you?”
Price got a good laugh out of your genuine statement, pulling you in to wrap his arms around you in a hug. Feeling how warm he was left no doubt in your mind that this man really was the bear you had been loving on. “It’s not weird at all, kid. Hell, you should see how Soap gets with Ghost when he’s shifted. I swear he’d die for a good belly rub.”
“I would!” Soap piped up in the back.
“C’mon now, don’t leave us just because you’re embarrassed. If anything, I’m feeling a bit hurt that you were only willing to be affectionate because you didn’t think it was me,” Price rumbled as he turned and started to guide you back down the hall. “Give me a few minutes to get into my bear and you can make up for it, though. It’s hard to get behind the ears myself, y’know? The legs don’t wanna reach sometimes.”
You ended up squished between both an overly affectionate bear and a hyperactive canine that evening with plenty of pats to go around. From then on, Price made sure to spend as much time around you in human form as he did bear. After all, it was easier for you to be around him when you discovered that human Price would shiver and grumble after a back scratch in the same way bear Price did.