Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Reid prepared for everything. It was a testament to the conditions of his childhood that he liked to be in control, and part of being in control was being prepared. It meant he didn’t have to rely on anyone. (That way, when people inevitably left, it wouldn’t hurt as much, because he was prepared for it. It was inevitable.) 

This meant that he often over-prepared. He bulk-bought coffee to make sure he never ran out. He bought clothes almost exclusively from charity shops or in the sale, because that meant that if they were ruined (by his mother in a delusion or by the bullies at school) he had spares, and they didn’t cost much to replace. He triple-knotted shoes and tied them around his ankles so that they couldn’t be ripped off his feet or untied and tied back together without his knowledge. He wrote out three copies of each of his homework’s, because if the bullies ruined the one hidden in his books there was the spare at the bottom of his rucksack and if they found the both of them, there was the spare spare copy he kept under his vest. Literally.  

There were some things in his childhood that he couldn’t over-prepare for, things that as a result, he over-over-prepared for in adulthood. His glasses for example. When he was young, he had exactly one pair of glasses. They were broken on a near daily basis, and he couldn’t replace them without parental consent. After his four years of high school, when he left at the age of 12, those glasses were held together by electrical tape, glue, and sheer force of will. He still had those glasses, even if he no longer wore them, even if he no longer acknowledged them or their history. When he turned sixteen, he bought a new pair. And three spares, just in case.  

He still broke them, it wasn’t like he had become any more popular during his years at university, or during the academy, but at least now he had spares, he had the money to get replacements, and he no longer needed parental consent to get an eye test.  

He invested in contact lenses and began wearing them more than he wore the glasses. It got to the point where he forgot what the weight of them resting on the bridge of his nose felt like. Where there were people who had never even seen him with glasses on before.  

This was the case with most of the team- JJ, Emily, Morgan, Rossi. Sure, they probably all thought that he wore them at some point, but it was the principal of the thing. Reinvention.  

There were some things though, that he could not prepare for. Sometimes, despite his preparations, things still went wrong. This was one of those instances.  

He had anticipated the case being a long one. He packed all his remaining contact lenses. Two pairs of glasses, just in case, took two bags of clothing, rather than one. (His usual bag and his gym bag from high school, the one he had stuffed to the back of his closet, unable to look at it and the memories it held and yet unable to part with it all the same. He had packed that one, years ago, on the way to MIT to complete his third doctorate and had never opened it again. His mistake was not checking the contents before he grabbed it and left.)  

This was one of those cases where everything seemed to stand in their way.  

First, it was the hotel. None of the public seemed willing to give them a place to stay, all too scared of the murderer running around their town to risk being seen helping the FBI. Then, when they did find a hotel to stay in, there was a problem with the rooms. There wasn’t enough of them. So of course, Reid was put with Morgan, which was not conducive to a good working relationship because he was much too concerned with accidentally weirding his friend out that he ended up ignoring him. (It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t. It was just sometimes when Derek spoke to him his stomach got caught in knots and he went all red and found it hard to speak. Objectively, he knew it was a crush, but he missed out on those formative years in favour of focusing on his studies, so he had no idea how to deal with it. Hence, ignoring him.)  

Then, the police department were hostile. Cold shouldered. The chief gave monosyllabic answers, the lackeys refused to acknowledge them. Reid became the one who fetched case files, read the case files, summarised the case files. Subsequently, he was the one who interacted most with the local police force (the others spent their time trying to get the locals to open up, which was futile and led to some of the most awkward interviews any of them had had to do).  

Naturally, with Reid being the one who was shut indoors with testosterone filled, belligerent, pugnacious, men- who reminded him far too much of the teenagers who used to bully him- for over 12 hours a day, he was the member of the intrusive FBI team that they despised the most. That led to the third thing.  

They went out of their way to make things difficult for him. Unlike the rest of the team, where they were just generally judgemental and useless, to Reid? It was harassment. It bordered on obstruction of justice, if he was being honest. They moved the pins in his geographical profiles. They put salt in his coffee. They edited the information pinned to the boards, formed lines to prevent him from accessing the copier and the printer, forcing him to either trek to the local library, twenty minutes away, or wait for the entire force to finish printing cards for their niece's friend’s cousin's birthday party. It came to a head on the fifth day.  

So far, Reid had been using his satchel to ferry paperwork between the hotel and the station. That had been fine, until one of the newer officers tampered with some evidence whilst he was out of the room, and Hotch had now instructed him to carry the evidence back and forth from the station to the hotel every morning and evening, as well as any paperwork he worked on, to prevent it from being meddled with. It meant he needed a bigger bag. He used his go-bag, as the sleek black fabric looked more professional than the faded, stained, blue canvas of his high school hold-all. He removed the evidence from the bag, placing it on the table. All that remained was his personal items, including his spare sets of glasses, remaining contact lenses, and everyday clothes. In hindsight, he probably should have removed them before he set foot in the station. They seemed insignificant enough that their absence would go unnoticed for quite some time yet hindering enough that their removal would slow down their case drastically. 

The perfect target for an officer trying to disadvantage the team.  

He left the bag unattended for five minutes. Five minutes whilst he went and made a coffee, and that was all it took. He returned, and the bag was missing. His clothes, his glasses. Gone.  

Suffice to say, he was frantic. Sure, it would have been worse if they had messed with the evidence again, but  those were his things. Things he had saved for, struggled for, fought for, things he had gone without for  years, luxury items  he couldn’t even dream of owning as a child. His search lasted thirty minutes, before he had to stop. He wouldn’t have stopped, but he had to. Why? Because an officer ran into him, spilling a litre of coffee all down his shirt, tie, pants, and sweater vest, soaking his shoes. To make things worse, the impact knocked him to the floor, and a contact lens came flying out. 

The thing is, all of his clothes, the ones he wore regularly, the ones he had bought new for his position in the BAU, were in that bag. And yes, he had that second bag, the stained blue holdall from his high school years, but it was just dawning on him that if he hadn’t opened that bag since college, the clothes in it would be the ones he had grown up wearing.  

As in, worn t-shirts (that would either hang off his lithe frame or stretch uncomfortably across his chest) stained with (mud, or blood, or grass, or whatever food had been poured over him whilst wearing it) marks he could never quite get out, jeans (that were threadbare at the knees from the amount of times he had pushed down onto hard concrete or unforgiving gravel) he had bought at sixteen and had to keep suspended on his waist with his father's old belt (which he had to punch three extra holes in), ratty second-hand converse (the ones that now had broken laces and ripped seams because they were the only shoes he owned for four years) he had bought as a gift to himself when he got into college, corduroy jackets that never quite fit right (because he bought three sizes too big to save money and by the time they did fit they were old and torn and he had to get another), the Caltech jumper he bought from his roommate who bought a new one every year (paid for with three essays that got them to the top of their class). And that was without mentioning the glasses.  

The frames were still held together by electrical tape and glue, and the bridge across his nose was coated with that much Sellotape they had no chance of cutting into the permanent scar that they rested on, and the glass was covered with a spiderweb of cracks and scratches. He hadn't worn them since he had forged his mother’s signature in order to get new pairs to take to college.  

The glasses were something he wasn’t sure why he kept. He had shoved them into that bag, knowing full well he would do anything to avoid wearing them, knowing he had three sets with unbroken frames and a good supply of contact lens. It was familiarity he supposed. Like why he kept the clothes in the first place. A reminder that he wouldn’t have to go back. That he had his fitted suits, and his expensive jumpers, and numerous ties, telling him he could pay for his mother's care, his apartment and bills and food, and still have money to go into savings and spend on items he didn’t really need. That he had friends who gifted him things they knew he’d appreciate, designer cardigans, hand-made Italian leather shoes, an MIT jumper and a brass rat from the year he attended the school (because they knew he couldn’t afford them at the time).  

But he didn’t have any of those things, because they were either at home or in that bag that was taken, and so, covered in coffee and squinting in order to see, he left for the hotel, trying not to think about what was about to happen.  

Luckily, by the time the others got back to the hotel after another day of trying unsuccessfully to pry information from the locals, he was already in bed, and did not have to speak to any of them because Morgan decided not to wake him from his supposed slumber. Small mercies.  

Morgan always got up at five to run. So he had an hour to get dressed, to get out of the hotel, get back to the station before Morgan saw him, and that wasn’t factoring in the possibility of running into another team member in the hallways. If he timed it right, he should make it.  

He emptied the bag onto his bed to consider his options. The inventory was as follows: 

1. (2) pairs of grass-stained gym shorts 
2. (1) pair of jeans, (four inches) too long, (four inches) too wide around the waist
3. (1) pair of jeans, (five inches) too wide around waist, worn knees
4. (1) brown leather belt, (four) self-punched holes
5. (3) threadbare white shirts, sleeves (2 inches) short
6. (2) hand-knit sweater vests, (6) holes 
7. (1) pair of ripped up converse, two sizes too small 
8. (4) cardigans, (7) buttons missing
9. (2) corduroy jackets, (1) two sizes too big, (1) one size too small, elbow patches, torn pockets
10. (1) Caltech jumper, (3) holes, faded logo, stained, (4 sizes) too big 

Not many options. He chose quickly, channelling his adolescent self as he dressed. (He decided on the worn jeans, sweater vest, and the larger corduroy jacket.)  

He had worn these clothes for years; he had no reason to be ashamed of them now. (Except he did, because he had been ashamed of them when he used to wear them, he just didn’t know any different, and as soon as he could he had replaced them with clothes he actually liked rather than just the cheapest off the rack. And now he knew what it felt like to feel good in what he wore, he dreaded the familiar feeling of smallness that was intrinsic in the donning of those clothes.) 

The thing was, he still wore similar clothes. The sudden influx of money from his FBI position didn’t cause his fashion sense to change, it just meant he no longer had to buy second hand or keep things for quite as long. That meant that the clothes in the bag were really just older, less fitting, and more worn versions of what he wore anyway. (It was just the glasses-  evidence of his childhood torment, out in the open for them to profile.) 

He had once been told that he was drowning in his clothes. That was one of the only things he liked about them, that they hid him, that they made him invisible. Now, it was the thing he most hated about them. He had become comfortable around his team, and whilst his wardrobe change took some getting used to, he eventually became comfortable in clothes that fit him. Dressing in his college clothes felt like regression, and the glasses cemented it. He was no longer SSA Dr Spencer Reid of the BAU, confident as he walked the corridors of the FBI, self-assured in each word he spoke, useful because he  knows  things. He was Spencer Reid, 12-year-old college student, stuttering through every word, stumbling over his own feet, annoying because he knows  too much.  He was half-expecting to have to turn in an essay whilst dodging flying fists and blocking out the comments of jealous classmates (twenty-year-olds sneering because no one goes to college to be shown up by a middle schooler).  

He did time it right. He just didn’t consider the complimentary breakfast that Rossi would be drawn to, the free coffee machines that Prentiss would no doubt be attracted to, or the close-knit nature of the team that essentially assured if one member ate breakfast in the hotel, the entire team would. Which meant if he walked through the foyer of the building, he would no doubt be seen by the team he was trying to avoid. So, he did time it right. He was just a little preoccupied and didn’t consider anything past specifically avoiding Morgan. 

He checked the stairs and the corridors a few times before exiting his room. Checked the reception of the building before exiting the elevator. Vigilant.  

He did not check the restaurant before entering. There was something to be said about constant vigilance, and in this case, it was the definition (constant not partial). 

He headed straight for the coffee machines in the corner- he rarely had breakfast, rarely ate without prompting. Coffee would at least keep him awake enough to deal with the hostile police force, and any food would probably be brought to him around lunch by JJ. She was good like that. (Rossi was scornful of his eating schedule, he hadn’t known Emily for long enough to fully trust her, Hotch was always busy, and Morgan had been working through lunch for most of their time in the town, otherwise he would usually take over the position.)  

He poured sugar directly into the disposable cup and inhaled the liquid, before pouring himself another for the walk to the station. (He found an old, abandoned cupboard on the second floor of the station where he stashed the evidence when he couldn’t find his bag. That meant he no longer had to lug it back and forth each day, leaving his hands free for coffee.)  

He turned, face buried in the second cup, and collided with a small figure. Thankfully, the lid of the coffee was on and he didn’t spill it down his front, because the clothing options left upstairs were even worse than what he had on.  

“Jesus, I’m so sorry, I didn’t spill anything on you, did I?” 

He babbled an apology, checking his own sweater for any stains before looking up. Right into a set of bright blue eyes he immediately identified as belonging to JJ. His stomach dropped, and he adjusted his glasses on instinct. It's funny, he thought, how quickly we fall back into old habits.  

Her eyes were wide as she took in his attire, and he swallowed nervously, fidgeting.  

“JJ, I didn’t know you’d be down here.” 

She hummed, eyes returning to his face. She must have noticed his eyes darting around.  

“The rest of the team have already gone to the station, we thought you deserved to sleep in after all the work you’ve been doing. Apparently, the coffee machine broke, and I offered to come and get some before breakfast ended.” 

He felt slightly better, hearing that the team were already at the station. That meant that they would probably have left by the time he got there, and there was no chance he would run into them.  

She looked back down at his feet, clad with battered converse, and raked her gaze over his worn jeans and the belt cinching them around his waist, and the sweater vest with three visible holes under his too large corduroy jacket, and back up to his face, where he blinked behind his broken glasses.  

“What happened to your clothes Spence?”  

He swallowed again, audibly, and ducked his head to avoid eye contact.  

“Spencer.”  

He shut his eyes, dragged a hand through his hair, turned back to the coffee machine to make a new cup, and began speaking. At least this way he was busy enough for her to not profile his lack of eye contact.  

“You know how those officers tampered with the evidence?”  

She made a noise he took as confirmation and continued.  

“Hotch told me to store the evidence in the hotel overnight, to avoid it happening again, but that meant transporting it between here and there each morning and night. The only bag I had was my go bag, so I took that to the station, but I forgot to take my things out and- well you know how they’ve been since we got here. Overloading the copier, messing with evidence, giving us the cold shoulder. I should have known better than to give them such an obvious advantage.” 

His coffee was made now, but he stayed staring at the machine in front of him. When JJ spoke, she sounded worried, and slightly... was that anger he detected?  

“They did something with your clothes?” 

His cheeks heated up at the question, but he nodded anyway.  

“I brought a second bag, because I figured this case would take a while, but I forgot to check the contents, and all that was in it was clothes from when I was a teenager. We didn’t have much money.”  

He chuckled, self-deprecating. How poor she must think they were, for him to be wearing both such ill-fitting garments.  

“And your glasses?”  

Her voice was gentle, but shame still coiled in his gut. He had hoped she hadn't noticed them, but alas, JJ was not blind.  

“All my contacts and all my spares were in my go bag. These are the ones I had in high school.”  

He was miserable, but he was glad it was JJ who found him. She was like a sister to him, and the one least likely to make fun of him. Hotch and Rossi would have been humiliating, Emily awkward, and Derek would try and cover up his discomfort with humour that would make the entire thing worse. So, JJ was the best option, by process of elimination. 

Mercifully, she didn’t ask why they were held together by tape and looked close to falling apart. It probably wasn’t difficult to infer from his demeanour and personality that he had been bullied, severely enough that he still felt the effects of it. 

“There’s nothing I can do about your glasses, but there’s a clothing store a few streets away, that does some things you might like. I was meaning to get some jumpers for you as a birthday present, but we could go and get some things to tide you over until we find your bag?” 

Gratitude. Just- waves of gratitude. It was like standing underneath a waterfall on a scorching day. His relief must have been obvious, because JJ gave him a small smile, and punched his arm lightly.  

“C’mon. We’ve got to be at the station by nine or they’ll start worrying.”  

He smiled at her, a small, tentative thing, and was glad this part of his past had been revealed, no matter how involuntarily. 

Chapter Text

“I hope it was a she.”  

Profiling his body language and facial expression, he knew it was a joke. Spencer was accustomed to Morgan’s jokes- when he had first joined the team, he had found it difficult to differentiate them from the thinly veiled disdain he was used to, but now, he could recognise them well. Lopsided smirk, loose movements, light voice. It was gentle ribbing, Spencer knew that.  

Except... years of false compliments and harsh words had degraded his social skills to next to nothing, and despite the progression he had made in recent years, sometimes he still found it difficult to tell when people were making fun of him or with him. 

And that was without addressing the homophobic nature of the comment.  

The thing was, it had taken a while for him to come to terms with his sexuality. The thing was, years of being called slurs, and only knowing of homosexuality as being a sin, and  gay  being used as an insult, had made him vehemently ignore his feelings towards men. The thing was, when he had finally accepted himself as liking both men and women, he had tried to join the academy and realised he would once again have to keep that part of himself secret, and this time it was objectively worse because he didn’t want to ignore it, he was being made to. (Both acts of ignorance were made of necessity, but the second cut deeper. Gideon had brought up “don’t ask, don’t tell” in casual conversation, and watched intently as Spencer reacted. A test of sorts. Spencer still didn’t know if he had passed, and with Gideon gone there was no way of knowing.)  

The thing was, if anyone realised he was bisexual, he could lose his job.  

So, the idea that the team had figured it out, considered it even, scared him more than any Unsub could. He knew they were accepting, he suspected that a few of them were not straight (Emily and JJ held eye contact for slightly too long to be platonic, and he had overheard Garcia talking to Morgan about a date she went on with a woman in her acting group) but it was still too risky. It made him paranoid, but he supposed it was slightly easier being attracted to both genders, because he was still attracted to women, men were just... his preferred choice. 

Morgan’s joke set him on edge, and thankfully no one mentioned it, but it was obvious to them that something was wrong, because he was snappish and irritable for the rest of the day.  

The case was a difficult one- sexual assault, rape, bullying. His nerves were already exposed, and the case made him feel like the book in which he had sealed all his childhood memories had been ripped open and laid bare for the team to read. He had a heart to heart with Morgan, sitting in the Unsub’s room, talked about the goalpost incident for the first time ever, felt the spark of indignant anger simmer slightly at the sincerity of his tone, and then roar as a great open flame at Hotch’s dismissal.  

He took a risk, in blocking the shot, talking the teenager down, but he didn’t regret it. He recognised the wild shame and burning rage in the boy’s eyes as something he was all too familiar with, and the look in his own eyes must have been too similar for the others to keep contact with, because both Morgan and Hotch looked away from his gaze. None of the team could meet his eyes on the plane, but that was ok. Hotch confronted him when the others were asleep, calling him selfish, and Spencer just stared because how could he be so goddamn stupid.  

His relationship with Morgan changed after that case. He was more attentive, and Spencer was more closed off. He hadn't forgotten the joke Morgan had made, and he had a feeling Morgan hadn't either.  

Morgan brought up Lila, on one of the cases, and Spencer waved the query off. Lila was a lesbian; she had told him after their kiss in the pool that she thought she might be bisexual and had kissed him to experiment. After the initial awkward phase, they bonded over their struggles and kept in contact, as friends. But he couldn’t tell the team that because that would be betraying her trust.  

He must have been too flippant, because as they were sat in an unmarked car, on a stakeout, Morgan brought it up again.  

“So... what did happen between you and Lila?”  

He tried to make it sound light, and casual, but it was obvious it had been playing on his mind. Knowing Morgan, he was probably hoping the question would lead to an open conversation where he could ask what he had done to make Spencer so distant. (Spencer knew that he had noticed, but he wasn’t sure why Morgan hadn’t addressed it. Up until now anyway.) 

“Nothing that concerns you.” 

So maybe that was too sharp. Not conducive of alleviating Morgan’s curiosity. Well, he’d blurted it out now, and it wasn’t like he could extract himself from the situation what with being on a stake-out, so really, what happened next was his own fault. Thus far into the conversation, Spencer had been staring out of the window with a pair of binoculars. They were promptly ripped out of his grasp.  

“Morgan what are you doing! We need to keep this guy under constant surveillance, pass them back!”  

“Not until you talk to me! You’ve been distant with me since the Owen Savage case, you can’t just keep ignoring me- even Hotch had started to notice.” 

“Yeah, and I wonder why that is.” 

Too sarcastic, way too sarcastic. There were flashing red lights going off in his head of ‘ABORT, ABORT’.  

“What the- Reid talk to me,” Morgan was pleading now, and Spencer was trying desperately to avoid eye contact because he knew that the moment he looked into Morgan’s eyes, he would give in. (It was unfortunate, really, because Spencer was a rather stubborn man, and the one thing that could make him yield just had to be the imploring gaze of his male co-worker who thought of him like a brother.)  

The car was small, there weren’t many other places to look, and the burning feeling of Morgan’s attention was starting to make him feel itchy, so he looked up, and gave in, like the cracking of an icy lake from too much pressure. 

“You remember that joke you made, at the start of the Owen Savage case? ‘I hope it was a she?’”  

Realisation dawned, and he nodded.  

“And... it wasn’t a she? You’re gay?” 

“Don’t ask don’t tell. As my co-worker you’re not legally allowed to ask that, and I'm not legally allowed to tell you.”  

The words came out bitter, and Morgan looked horribly confused, and he knew that he could trust him with this, because Morgan knew the importance of keeping secrets. 

“I’m bi. Sexual. And that joke you made on the Owen Savage case... it scared me.” 

“Why did that scare you?” 

For someone so incredibly smart, he was so incredibly dense.  

“Because I could lose my job, Derek. If someone even suspects that I'm not straight, I could be fired. And it wasn’t a he or a she, it was an NA meeting, I just didn’t want Rossi to know.” 

The last sentence didn’t mean to slip out, but it did, and an awful look of guilt graced Morgan’s face before being replaced with a grim determination. 

“Thank you. For telling me, I mean, because after what I said that must have been difficult, and especially so because I made you feel like I was entitled to know what was wrong. And I'm sorry I scared you, or if I made you uncomfortable- I didn’t think about what I was saying before it came out. I’ll try harder, in the future.”  

And Spencer just nodded, because he just came out to the man he was in love with, he had apologised for making him uncomfortable in such an incredibly earnest way, he had his friend back, and what else could he do?  

Morgan did try, so much so that it was noticeable to the entire team. He cut down on the flirty comments with female team members (apart from Garcia) even when there was ample opportunity for an innuendo and everyone prepared for him to comment he simply gave another piece of information relevant to the case and continued, and hell if that didn’t make Spencer hum. He didn’t use gender identifying pronouns when talking about the partners of all team members, and he didn’t use them when describing his evening exploits, and it made Spencer glow with something akin to pride.  

They grew closer, after that conversation, a new kind of relationship, like the first blooms of spring, and every time they shared a private joke, or made eye contact across a crowded room, or piled ideas to come to correct conclusions, it felt like Spencer could finally breathe.   

There were still some blips, like when Morgan made a similar joke on another case, or when he brought up Lila Archer again, but they talked it through, and it strengthened their friendship rather than breaking it. He once made the mistake of asking why Spencer didn’t come out of the team.  

“I had these friends in college, and you know Ethan, from New Orleans? We had a thing, when I was eighteen, and they stumbled across it, and they promised they wouldn’t tell cause neither of us were ready to come out, and I trusted them. They were fine with Ethan being gay, because that meant he was no competition when they were picking up girls, and the girls thought it was great to have a gay best friend, but when they realised I was bi and not gay- it wasn’t pretty. They kept Ethan but dropped me, and I was upset sure, but I thought it was over. They outed me, at graduation, and the looks I got, people saying I had tricked them, my professors being disgusted with me I- I went to MIT for my next doctorate. I can’t risk it happening again Derek. Not with so much more to lose, this job is my life, the team is my family, I can’t lose them. It would destroy me.” 

Morgan didn’t ask again, though he did threaten to track down his college friends and arrest them for various offences he was certain he could recruit Garcia to find.  

Despite the unorthodox and frankly upsetting way they had reached this new chapter of friendship, Spencer was glad they did. Especially when Derek turned up at his door, fresh from a revelatory conversation with Penelope and soaking wet from the rain, and kissed him senseless against the doorframe.  

Chapter Text

Reid had a strange relationship with authority figures. There was the obvious desire for praise, to impress and please them, but he was wary around them too. Standing at arm's length away, tracking them when they moved to adjust his position accordingly. It was nearly imperceptible, but not to Rossi. He was the founder of the BAU for Christ's sake, it would be concerning if he couldn’t profile what was right in front of him.  

To be succinct- Rossi knew Spencer Reid had issues with his parents. Since the only one he seemed to talk about was his mother, he assumed his father was the root of his troubles, but there was something to be said for the way he latched onto JJ and Blake. He didn’t need to read his file to know he was right about that (except he did read his file because what was the point of being a famous FBI profiler if he didn’t get to pull a few strings every now and then).  

What he didn’t expect was for his father to have left him in the care of his mentally ill mother. Leaving a ten-year-old to pay for food, gas, electricity, rent, medical care. Rossi had a fair amount of hatred directed at various killers, but when he found that out, he didn’t think there was anyone he hated more than William Reid.  

Learning that, he figured that his apprehensive yet innate desire to please male authority figures stemmed from the abandonment issues his father’s actions had left him with. But it didn’t explain his body language, that bordered more on fear than anything else. Sure, there was nothing about any sort of abuse in his file, but he had grown up with a mother who suffered from a condition that caused delusions. It was entirely possible that his mother had lashed out when in a delusion and, unwilling for anyone to find out about his home situation, Reid had covered it up.  

But that didn’t fit with his connection to Blake and JJ, or with his wariness around men.  

So the conclusion Rossi came to was that at some point in his childhood, probably by his father or a man of a similar age that replaced his role in his life after he left, Reid had been abused.  

Once he had hypothesised that, it became clearer and clearer. Standing arms lengths away from older men, assessing all the entrances and exits to rooms he entered, remaining unflinching when people came close to hitting him.  

It was obvious, a simple answer to a myriad of burning questions, investigation over, case closed.  

At least, that was what Rossi thought.  

They were investigating a case in Atlantic City, the cyclical abduction of three different ‘types’ of women.  

They’d linked the appearances of the women as they’d found them to a line of dolls released about 20 years previously, and that to a ‘design-a-doll' contest held by the production company. Fishing through applications to the contest, they’d come across a particularly disturbing entrance essay and a dress design eerily similar to one found on a victim.  

The young girl who had sent in the entry was identified as Samantha Malcolm; daughter of a Doctor Arthur Malcolm who specialised in therapy directed at traumatised pre-pubescent girls.  

They’d split up- Rossi and Spencer to find the father and the rest of the team to various properties held under his name.  

The interview was not going well. The man was evasive, denying his daughter’s involvement, deflecting questions- futile attempts to get them out of the office. It made him look guilty, if Rossi was being honest.  

He was getting increasingly frustrated by the lack of useful response from the man, so he decided it was best to leave and regroup with the team. He reached out to touch his sleeve- “Let’s go, Reid.”- and the younger man moved sharply out of his grasp, turning towards the shelves behind Malcolms desk.  

There was a look on his face, familiar to any member of the BAU as the look he got after figuring out something of immense importance- a revelatory moment reflected perfectly in the sharp lines of his face as he frowned.  

Rossi let him be. If he’d figured out how to crack the doctor, then it was better to let him take one more shot than risk their last chance of getting information.  

“Hey, a really fast question,” he gestured towards the shelves full of toys. “Why are these toys here?” 

The doctor shifted in his seat. A nerve had been hit.  

“I use them in my therapy.” 

Reid shook his head slightly, moving closer to the cabinets.  

“No, I understand that, but why are they way up on this shelf, away from where any kids can actually reach them?” 

The doctor looked slightly more unnerved under Reid’s gaze.  

“They're reminders of patients that I've helped.” 

Reid nodded, a flash of something there and then not, before reaching up to one of the shelves and pulling down a stuffed unicorn.  

“Let me ask you something,” the toy made a thunking sound as it hit the desk. “What was the name of the girl you helped with this one?” 

The doctor’s voice was hoarse when he spoke, eyes firmly fixed on the wood grain of his desk.  

“Jenny Larson.” 

Reid made a humming sound, and another stuffed toy joined the first.  

“And this one? What was the name of the girl you helped with this one?  

The doctor didn’t hesitate before replying, but it sounded like the name was being dragged out of him.  

“Abigail Moore.”  

“How about this one?” 

Reid’s questions were becoming faster in succession, a thinly veiled anger entering his voice as he dumped another toy on the desk.  

“Linda Krauss.” 

Reid adjusted his stance slightly.  

“These girls are what, they're like 9- 9 or 12 years old, I'm assuming?” 

“My PhD is on the effect of trauma on prepubescent girls. I do not appreciate what you're implying.” 

The doctor shifted in his seat, looking more and more uncomfortable, and Reid’s eyes narrowed as he followed the motion. His voice was dangerously low when he spoke, stalking around the desk to make eye contact with the man as he continued.  

Rossi was content to stand there observing, a haunting figure in the corner.  

“Oh, I'm not implying anything. I'm making an inference. An inference is an educated guess. And based on that, I form a hypothesis. For instance, my hypothesis here is that after you raped your daughter, you submitted her to electroshock treatment to make sure she stayed quiet.” 

In the silence of the room, his accusation was piercing, and the vitriol in his voice was deadly.  

"This is outrageous."

He waited for the doctor to finish blustering before continuing, and Rossi knew what he was doing. Dramatic pause of indeterminate time to further assess the reaction from the doctor, his body language, and verbal response. Giving Rossi time to assess what he could not in the midst of his red misted vison- and Rossi was quite thankful he still had the restraint to wait those few seconds. His body language implied he was a few seconds away from launching himself at the doctor.  

“And then, out of guilt, you bought her toys, more specifically, you bought her a line of dolls. Because that's what serial molesters do. They give gifts. So, you continued the pattern with your other patients, and once they left your care, you added their toys to your collection.” 

That. There was something in the way he said that, some personal grievance bleeding through. It wasn’t an officially recognised practise of serial molesters to gift items to victims, but it did occur. And although Reid had an almost unrivalled amount of knowledge on any subject, he stayed very close to facts backed up by studies on FBI cases. Rossi supposed it made his reasoning easier in the case reports. Going off the beaten track, basing this accusation on something he couldn’t back up with reams of verified research, was not like him.  

So, some personal grievance, something big enough to stake this case on it. Rossi was thrust out of his pondering by Malcolm’s shaky defence.  

“I'm sorry, but you can't back up your story, doctor.” 

Anyone on the team knew that honorifics as insults- especially around Reid- were not a good idea. The bitter chuckle he gave before replying proved as much.  

“This is why I love my job, doctor. Because my lab, it's a jury of your peers,” he propelled himself forward to rest on the edge of the desk, and the doctor moved away as he continued. “My tests will be Jenny Larson, Abigail Moore, and Linda Krauss. The D.A. will put them on the stand, and I'm going to personally bring these dolls in, and we're going to watch how they react.” 

There was something brewing behind his eyes, an untameable injustice that had gathered dust over the years, unmeasurable pain collecting over the years, and Rossi knew it was time to intervene.  

He stepped forward, and Reid remained perfectly still as he spoke. 

“Or you could tell us where your daughter is, and we'll tell the D.A. you cooperated. But once we walk out this door, that deal comes off the table.” 

They both stood for a moment, before Reid lurched to his feet and walked towards the door, Rossi following close behind. A quiet voice spoke out, just as Rossi’s hand closed over the doorknob.  

“2529 Adams Street." 

The car is silent when they drive back, dolls safely stored in the back seat. There’s a horrible tension in the air, an unspoken secret. He can tell Reid knows he got too close. Too connected, too personal. If he was in that room with a regular person, he may have gotten away with it, but he was David Rossi. One of the founders of the BAU, friends with Jason Gideon, author of numerous books on profiling. To him, what had been implied during that interview on might as well have been written across his face.  

At some point, over the course of his very short, and very sad, life, Spencer Reid had been sexually abused. And, based on the leftover elements of physical abuse trauma, the behaviours that were never quite explained by that conclusion, the perpetrator was probably his father.  

The thing is, Spencer is closed off with everyone. The thing is, if he’s that closed off with the people closest to him, there was no chance he had spoken to someone about what had happened between him and his father. The thing is, Rossi knows bottling things up for that long is not healthy. 

Which left Rossi in the uncomfortable situation of knowing a very personal secret of one of the most reserved people he had ever met- in short, Reid would never address what they both knew had been suggested, and Rossi didn’t even know how to broach the subject.  

But he’d be damned if he didn’t try.  

“That was good work in there,” all that got him was a small hum, so he continued. “I wouldn’t have thought there was anything special about those toys.” 

“There wasn’t anything special about those toys.” 

The bitterness in his voice was expected, but the muffled sniff that followed was not.  

Rossi blinked. Glanced subtly across the dash. 

Whatever he had expected, it was not tears.  

And then Spencer was speaking, stopping and starting around gulping sobs, hands shaking as he wiped them across his eyes.  

“My father used to get me books. And I knew what was going on, of course I did, but who could I tell? There were the teachers at school who thought I was too smart for my own good, and- and I couldn’t upset my mother- because, if I told her, she would make him leave, an- and he was the person who still made money, so- so we couldn’t lose him, y’know?” 

Rossi felt sick. He had known it had happened, but hearing this, this admittance- it was horribly similar to what he’d heard a thousand times before, from the parents of victims or Unsubs. That they couldn’t tell someone, couldn’t make it stop, because where would that leave them, and how would they survive?  

And Rossi, Rossi felt sick, because he should have known. He should have known after that case in Vegas, where Spencer was so desperate to pin his father for something- but he’d used it for evidence of bitterness still felt for a physically abusive father- and how could he be so stupid?  

And Spencer was still speaking, voice getting higher pitched- “I said no, always, but then it was pointless because he never stopped- an, and,”- and his foot was pressing down on the gas, and he swore, promised on his own life, that if he ever saw William Reid again, he could not be held accountable for his actions.  

“He said it was because he knew- knew what I-I was, and, that this was cheaper than the other options, and he used them as th-reats, he’d say- he wanted to send me away, to fix me.”  

So he was gay, ok, Rossi couldn’t say he was surprised, but that was not what was important.  

There was disgust now, too, mixing the hate and anger and bitterness into a madly concocted potion of despisal. The tears seemed to have stopped now, and Rossi only vaguely registered he had pulled over.  

“I spent the first ten years of my life terrified. And then for the next eight years, I was scared of him coming back, of my mother, but I wasn’t scared of the bullies anymore because I’d already been through so much worse.” 

The confession was whispered. And then he seemed to still, to realise what he’d said, and he was fumbling for the latch and falling out of the car when the door opened.  

And then Rossi heard his groan of pain from the ground, and he was reaching clumsily for his own door, and awkwardly falling, stumbling to the other side of the car, and pulling Spencer into his arms.  

“Kid- kid. Listen to me, listen, okay? Deep breaths, ok? Breath with me, c’mon.” 

Dragging air into his lungs, Rossi lowered himself and Spencer to the ground, leaning against the side of the car.  

(At the back of his mind, he realised that the time for solving the case was getting shorter, but then there was a 25-year-old genius finally coming to terms with the corrective rape his father had subjected him to as a child, and Rossi might be going to hell, but he knew where his priorities lay.) 

Spencer placed his head on his chest, and Rossi pressed it further in, and Spencer’s breathing was calming down, so Rossi spoke.  

“Nothing you did, nothing you are, could make that right, you know that? Your father is sick, and depraved, and you have done nothing wrong. He made his own choices, and it isn’t fair, but you don’t have to be scared anymore. Your father is in Las Vegas, and you live in Virginia, and you are here, and he is not.” 

Spencer is calmer now, the hands grasping in his shirt loosening and raising to wipe furiously at his eyes.  

“Sorry,” he whispers, avoiding eye contact, skin reddening.  

“Don’t apologise for that Spencer. Ever.” 

“We need to- those women, we need to call Hotch, God.” 

“I did it on the way out of the office.”  

“Oh.” 

And in that moment, he seems so incredibly small. Curling into himself, self-consciously rubbing at his arms, avoiding eye contact, hair hanging limply around his face.  

And in that moment, Rossi feels so incredibly helpless. Staring at this traumatised young man, not knowing how to help his colleague, and his heart breaking into thousands of pieces that he hopes to god cut into all the people who have ever hurt Spencer Reid.  

And after about five minutes, when they’ve regained their composure, they would get back into the vehicle, and drive towards the address they had been given, to save three young women. And once they arrived, Rossi would tell Hotch to send Reid in, and Reid would stare, and Rossi would stare back, and they would be at a strange stalemate that no one else would be able to figure out, and then Spencer Reid would go and be brilliant and save the lives of three young women in a way that no one else on the team could.  

But for now, they would sit on the cold dirt of a layby in a city they didn’t know, next to a government owned car, and Rossi would assure him that he was available at any time if he needs to talk, and together they would mourn the loss of Spencer Reid’s childhood.  

Chapter Text

Rossi seemed like the obvious choice for help in situations requiring connections and money- but the reality was that his reach was limited to mainly crime authors and retired detectives, and unfortunately, most useful people had developed morals and no longer took bribes.   

Surprisingly, Spencer was the one they went to when they needed things done.   

A helicopter? Don’t worry, Spencer knows the agent in charge of the CIRG.   

A consultation with the leading figure of aroma compound chemistry? Spencer helped them on their award-winning academic paper.   

A first edition copy of a hundred-year-old book? They had one of them in the Harvard library, Spencer knows an archivist over there that owes him a favour.  

Spencer’s reach over all parts of academia was impressive, and even more so useful. It came to the point where whenever something was needed that they didn’t have immediate or easy access to, they deferred to Spencer. If he didn’t know someone who could help, he most certainly knew someone who knew someone who could.   

And it wasn’t just helpful on cases either.   

When Garcia lamented the discontinuation of her favourite shade of lipstick, Spencer was already on the phone with a friend who worked in cosmetics to talk about privately producing the same shade.   

When JJ struggled to find the right camera for Will’s Christmas present, Spencer was already emailing a college friend who went into photography.   

When Rossi’s publisher couldn’t get him into CalTech for a book reading, Spencer was already contacting the chief administrative official.   

So it wasn’t surprising that he was the person everyone went to when they needed access to a certain thing, person, or piece of information. 

Everyone knew Hotch had a difficult relationship with Jack. After Foyet, he had taken a step back from his position as unit chief, handing the position to Emily, so that he could focus on his son. But some extra time spent between father and son didn’t make up for all the things he had missed.   

It had been less than a year since Haley’s death, and they all knew that he was desperate for his son to have a good 11 th  birthday.  

So, when Jack asked for something he couldn’t give, he swallowed his pride, and went to Reid. 

Hotch had asked him to stay for a moment after the briefing, and Spencer had no idea why. In the past four cases, he hadn’t gone against direct orders, put himself or the team in unnecessary danger, or spoken out of turn. It had also been about a year since he had last been severely injured on a case, so if it wasn’t disciplinary action or an informal psyche evaluation, then...   

“Jack wants basketball tickets for his birthday.”  

Spencer blinked.  

...personal matter.   

Hotch continued.   

“I can afford them, but the game he wants to see has sold out.”  

He frowned, clearing his throat before slowly replying.   

“And you want me to...”  

“I’ve been reliably informed that your ability to procure information and things is not just applicable to cases... I thought you might know someone.”  

Hotch was  fidgeting.  Hotch did not fidget.  

Spencer blinked again.   

“What game does he want to see?”  

Hotch’s hand’s stilled and he met Spencer’s eyes for the first time in the conversation.   

Spencer looked at him, hoping he showed how unimpressed he was.   

“It’s your son’s birthday Hotch. Did you really think I wouldn’t help? Now which game does he want to see?”  

The tension in his shoulders was visibly released as Hotch gave a relieved sigh.   

“Will and Henry got him into the New Orleans Hornets,” he said with a rueful smile. “They have a game against the Memphis Grizzles on the 31 st .”   

As soon as he hears the team name his brain is whirring with information.   

(The Hornets (Trevor Ariza, Marco Belinelli, Aaron Gray, Willie Green, Patrick Ewing Jr, Carl Landry, D.J. Mbenga, Emeka Okafor, Chris Paul, Quincy Pondexter, Jason Smith, David West, with the recently traded Jack Jarrett, David Anderson, and Marcus Banks)- New Orleans 9 th  season in the NBA. Head coach Monty Williams. General manager Dell Demps.)  

As his mind starts to run through the statistics and rosters for previous seasons, he hears himself reply.   

“Give me ten minutes. I’ll see what I can do.”   

He's not present enough to hear what Hotch says in return, and eight minutes later he pulls out his phone in an empty room and dials a number he hopes still works.   

“Hi- Marcus? It’s me Spencer, Spencer Reid. Yeah, I’ve been good- no, no, I joined the FBI. Yeah it’s pretty good, listen, I was wondering if you could do me a favour?”  

Two minutes later, he’s forwarding a ticket confirmation email for four tickets (Hotch, Jack, Will, and Henry.) to see the Hornets vs. Grizzles on the 31 st  of January to Hotch.   

Four minutes later, he’s explaining to a disbelieving Hotch that he helped coach his high school basketball team, and that his calculations assisted them in winning gold in the Las Vegas high school basketball league three years in a row, and that those tournament wins are what secured Marcus Banks’ college place, and therefore he was able to call in a favour, so no, he was neither a secret billionaire nor a member of the illuminati.   

Two weeks later, he’s arranging a meet and greet with the team as a surprise for the boys.   

Four weeks later, he receives two hand-drawn cards from Jack and Henry, thanking Uncle Spencer for their amazing day out.   

He also has to deal with a jokingly irate JJ claiming that no present she’s capable of getting with ever top this one and that Uncle Spencer will always be the boy's favourite, so she may as well give up whilst she’s ahead. He laughs with her, but inside he glows with pride.   

He's not fond of attention, but it’s worth it to see Derek’s face when he indulges the kids.   

 Three months later, on a sleepy Sunday morning, he has the same expression when the topic of children is raised.   

Chapter Text

Emily settled into the team in late Autumn, when the wind was just beginning to carry the winter’s chill, and the rain fell hard and fast. Many of the scheduled flights had been cancelled, and for most of the winter months, they had been forced to hold long distance consultations through video conferences or phone calls. Roads were closed more frequently than they were open, and it became common to all retreat back to one individual's apartment for convenience, or even remain in the office overnight. Going outside meant three layers of thick jumpers, waterproof coats, and thick soled boots; and with how often the heaters broke down, staying in required at least one sweater.  

The constant proximity meant that she grew to know the team much quicker, and much better, than she had in the early months of her position. She knew that Reid changed the amount of sugar in his coffee dependant on which mug he used, that Hotch and Rossi helped coach Jack’s little league. She learnt exactly how to get Henry to sleep whilst watching him for JJ, and that when Morgan got lost inside his head, Garcia was the person he needed to help him out. She learnt that when Reid needed to infodump, he went to Rossi or Hotch, and when Rossi needed help with his writing, he went to Hotch. She found her own place in the group, as the person Reid went to when he had cravings, as JJ’s confidant when she had worries about her marriage, as Garcia’s guard against sleazy men in bars and online, as Morgan’s drinking buddy who watched bad action films and threw popcorn at the screen, as Rossi’s date when it came to mandatory publicity events, as Hotch’s ally when he had to defend the actions of the team to Strauss or anyone else in a higher standing in the FBI.  

Then winter melted away, leaving them with spring showers and frost, necessitating warm clothing and cool clothing and everything in-between. Slowly, layers were shucked off, t-shirts and thin raincoats replacing jumpers and ski jackets. When the summer came, it was as intense as the winter. The sweltering heat may not have cancelled their flights, but it certainly slowed their productivity. The roads were closed just as often, and they found themselves falling back on the habits they formed in the cold.  

After office hours were over, they often went to Rossi’s mansion, simply because of the pool he had in the left courtyard of his garden. Although it was fought against- mainly by Hotch and Rossi- they all spent hours in the water, relaxing after the hard drudge of the workday. The only person who hadn’t been in the pool, was Reid.  

He attended the informal gathering with the rest of them, but despite the cajoling, teasing, begging, he had not once entered the pool. Instead, he rolled up his slacks and pulled out a book, lay in one of the recliners, and watched from the side. Most of the team seemed to have accepted that he would not join in, but there were a few things that Emily had observed about his behaviour.  

The first was that he never took his shirt off. He never even seemed to roll up the sleeves. Sure, he took his tie off, undid two buttons at the top, untucked it from his trousers, but he never removed it fully. Emily knew he was self-conscious, had deducted it was probably a result of bullying, but the temperature never seemed to dip below 25 degrees- he must be extremely uncomfortable in long-sleeved shirt and full-length trousers. Whatever reason he had for covering himself up, it must be good.  

The second was that the first time she had seen him properly angry was when Morgan wouldn’t shut up about getting him in the pool. It wasn’t that he lost his temper, oh no. It was that after he had laughed it off, once Morgan had turned away, the look on his face was pure annoyance. Spencer regulated his emotions- it was one of the first things she noticed about him. He was controlled, holding back, and that? That was the first glimpse of maybe some true emotion from him (that might have been a bit harsh. It was rare, but Spencer occasionally let go and enjoyed himself, brief moments of laughter and small smiles late in the evening. But when something bad happened, he went blank, painfully polite. The first glimpse of maybe some true negative emotion might have been a fairer assessment). 

The third was the pure panic on his face when JJ knocked him into the water. He scrambled for a few seconds, arms flailing, and hands grasping for something he couldn’t reach, before crashing into the pool. For a moment, time seemed to stand still. Reid was suspended in the air, droplets of water hanging beside him. Morgan lunged towards him, their own futile "creation of Adam,” hands not quite reaching, as JJ realised what she’d done with wide eyes and the rest of the team watched on in horror.  

And then he hit the water with an almighty splash, and a wave of water crashed over Morgan and JJ, and Reid was sputtering in the water, slicking his hair back and rubbing at his eyes, gasping desperately for breath. Morgan leant out to help him out, and the others surrounded him when he was stood on the side, but he waved them off and scurried into the building.  

Emily, sitting a little way away, was the only one who saw it. His clothes were drenched, shirt soaked and clinging to his frame. The fabric had become see through, and as he climbed out the pool the material had attached itself to the inside of his wrist, revealing a ragged, thick, scar.  

It made her blood chill- the thought of the hatred, the desperation, needed to create such a thing. And it was hatred, not violence or anger, and she knew because she knew that type of scar intimately. And because of that, she knew it was self-inflicted. 

She found him in the en suite bathroom of the third guest bedroom she looked in. It had taken a few minutes to convince the team to let her go, but once Morgan was turned, the others quickly agreed.  

He had taken his shirt off, leaving him in trousers and a vest both saturated with water and dripping steadily onto the floor. He was bent over the bathtub, scrubbing at his hair with a towel, cursing quietly.  

“You know, Rossi has spare clothes in the drawers of all these bedrooms. You might want to think about borrowing some, unless you want to walk around soaking wet.” She leant against the doorframe and crossed her arms when he ignored her. “Or you want people to see those scars.” 

He stilled, then turned slowly. The horrified expression on his face nearly made her regret saying it, but Emily wasn’t one for regret. She pushed on.  

“You did them, didn’t you? Why? Your father beat you around, kids at school get a bit much, so you decided to take a knife-”  

“A mix of the two, actually. My dad beat me and then left, then my mother beat me and could never remember doing it, and the kids at school took pleasure in finding new ways to humiliate me every day. And it was a razor, not a knife. What do you want, Emily?” 

His voice was cold, some combination of glass and ice and steel; brittle but cutting.  

When he had turned, his arms had been at his sides. Showing his scars. Slowly, over the course of his speech, he had moved, hugging them around himself. Hiding them.  

“When I was 15, I lived in Rome. I wasn’t a good kid. Snuck out, hung around the wrong sorts, dabbled in drugs, drank. I got pregnant. I was religious, see, so sex, suicide, abortion, were... looked down on. Condemned.” He was squirming slightly, and her voice was soft as silk. She rolled back her sleeves. “I slit my wrists, took a knife to my veins, all that. Barely made it out alive. The baby didn’t.” 

“Emily...”  

A hand brought up to cover his mouth, wide eyes he couldn’t drag away from her forearms, scars he recognised as his own reflected on her.  

He was calmer, when he looked back up, and it reassured her. Gave her a feeling of control in the sense that she hadn’t made a mistake.  

“I was eighteen. Finishing my second doctorate, having my mother institutionalised, fresh autism diagnosis, bullies not letting up. My professor hit on me. Said I should be thankful, for his help, and that I owed him.” He smiled slightly, a small, sad, thing. “I froze, let him feel me up, and thankfully someone came knocking on the office door because I don’t know how far he would have gone had no one intervened.”  

“You don’t have to hide them from us. None of them will judge you.”  

His smile froze.  

“Then why do you hide yours?” 

“That’s not the same.” 

“How?” 

“I’ve been here for 9 months. You’ve been here for 5 years. You’ve known the team for a lot longer.” 

She reached into the bathroom cupboard and rummaged around, before pulling out two t-shirts and flinging one towards Spencer. He scrambled to catch it, sending her a confused look. She stripped off her long-sleeved shirt and replaced it with the tee, laughing when she saw him turn red and look away.  

“There should be some trousers in there two, maybe shorts if you’re feeling funky. I’ll leave you to change.”  

Turning quickly, she made to leave the room, but he interrupted her before she made it through the door.  

“Emily? Just... thank you.” 

“My pleasure, Spencer.” 

The door clicked shut behind her, and she smiled at the empty room.  

She had spent 15 years of her live scared and selfish, and the last 15 trying to make up for that. Trying to be good, and kind, and helpful. She craved approval, and success, but it didn’t make her feel any less empty.  

As that door fell closed, for the first time in 30 years, she felt like she had achieved something.