Chapter Text
Saturday mornings were supposed to be relaxing.
Aaron Hotchner told himself that as the steady beat of his running shoes echoed against the pavement. The team had gotten home late from Colorado the previous evening, so Jack had stayed the night with Jessica, his laughter and small footsteps replaced by silence in their home. Aaron had needed to remind himself that he liked the quiet, and that he’d earned it, but truthfully he would have preferred to have his boy with him. Whenever the team was home Aaron tried to spend as much time with Jack as possible, never sure when they would next be called away.
Regardless, even though Aaron was an habitually early riser, it was still too early to pick Jack up, so the next hour had been put aside for himself.
Training helped, although the triathlon he had signed up for was just another commitment he wasn’t entirely sure he had time for. His days already belonged to the Bureau, his nights to Jack, and whatever scraps remained were usually swallowed by case files or exhaustion. Still, he had signed up anyway. Discipline had always been easier for him than idleness, during those rare moments when he had the option.
He had always found running specifically to be therapeutic, though his thoughts inevitably circled back to the Bureau regardless. Today it was the paperwork waiting for him on his desk. He had been too exhausted to bother with it on the plane home. He regretted that lapse now.
No matter where he was or what he was doing, duty clung to him like a second skin.
The path ahead curved sharply and Aaron rounded it, momentum carrying him straight into another body. He jolted at the impact, hands shooting out instinctively to steady the tall, thin figure before either of them could stumble.
“Sorry, my fault,” Aaron said, breathing coming in sharp bursts from the exertion. He straightened, the warmth of contact registering for a brief moment before he released his grip, ready to move on. Then his eyes locked on the familiar face before him.
“Reid?”
The younger man looked almost out of place on the jogging path. His purple scarf was wound tightly around his throat despite the mild morning, and his chestnut hair was mussed, stubborn curls falling across his forehead haphazardly. A worn book was pressed close against his chest like a shield.
Recognition seemed to dawn on Reid in stages, and Aaron raised an amused eyebrow at the sight.
“Oh. Hotch.” Spencer shifted his weight, adjusting his grip on the book with both hands. “Hi.”
Aaron let out a quiet chuckle at the way the wide-eyed shock drained from Reid’s expression, replaced by an almost sheepish half-smile and a small, uncertain wave.
“Hi,” he replied, smiling lightly in hopes that Reid would relax a little. Aaron knew he’d never been the person Reid felt most at ease around. He understood why, although he would rather that wasn't the case. They'd worked together for almost a decade now, and Aaron had come to care about their youngest member a great deal.
“You’re out early,” Reid said then, pulling Aaron from his thoughts.
Aaron let out the faintest breath of amusement. He had actually let himself sleep for an extra twenty minutes this morning. “That was my line. I didn’t think you were a morning person.”
Reid gave a half-shrug, eyes darting toward the ground. “I’m not. I mean, not usually.”
Aaron slowed his breathing and tipped his head slightly. He knew that evasive cadence, the way Reid folded in on himself when things got a little too close to personal. “Want to talk about it?”
“Not really,” Reid replied wryly, shooting Aaron an apologetic grimace.
Aaron wanted to press. The shadows under his eyes were evidence enough, and the half-shrug was too evasive to be convincing, but he refrained. There was a reason for the no inter-team profiling rule, and Reid gave pieces of himself sparingly, so Aaron wasn’t about to force the issue. If the man wanted to tell him, eventually he would.
So instead, he nodded toward the book clutched to Reid’s chest. “What are you reading?”
Reid blinked at him, momentarily thrown by the change in subject, then loosened his grip enough to hold the book up. “Shakespeare. Sonnets.”
Aaron allowed the faintest smile to curve his mouth. “I would have expected you to have all of those memorized by now.”
“I do,” Reid admitted without hesitation. Then, “but sometimes I like rereading things in print anyway. It slows me down. Forces me to take it one word at a time instead of ten lines at once.”
Aaron found himself smiling at the confession, charmed by the rear glimpse into Reid’s fascinating mind.
“Which one are you on?”
Reid hesitated only briefly before flipping the book open, smoothing the worn page with long fingers and indicating the passage to Aaron. However, when he spoke he was clearly reciting from memory, a lifetime of habit taking over.
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken…”
His tone softened as he reached the final lines, hazel eyes lifting briefly to meet Aaron's dark ones.
“If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.”
As Reid finished, Aaron felt a sudden tightness in his throat. He cleared it quickly, taking a deliberate breath and masking the reaction as best he could, a flicker of surprise running through him. He had been around Reid’s remarkable memory countless times, seen the younger man recite facts, passages, and details with that same intensity. Aaron thought he would have been used to the effect by now.
“Sonnet 116,” he managed to say. “Is that right?”
Reid nodded his assent. “That's right. You know you’re Shakespeare.”
Aaron laughed. “I'd better. My introduction to Shakespeare wasn’t exactly inspiring. Junior year, my English teacher Mrs. Reynolds insisted on reading Romeo and Juliet aloud in a monotone so flat it could have put a hummingbird to sleep, but God help you if you didn't pass her class.”
Reid’s mouth twitched, as though he wanted to laugh but didn’t quite know if he was supposed to.
“I still remember the look on my classmates’ faces,” Aaron continued, tone dry. “We weren’t moved by the beauty of the verse, just counting how many times we could sneak yawns without getting detention.”
That earned him a small, genuine laugh from Reid, who ducked his head quickly like he hadn’t meant for it to escape.
Aaron smiled at the reaction and tilted his head, studying the other man for a moment. “Hearing it from you though, that’s something else entirely. You do it justice, Reid.”
Reid blinked. His ears turned faintly pink, the color creeping down into his cheeks. He shifted the book in his hands, gaze darting toward the path instead of Aaron’s eyes. “I, uh… thanks. It’s just memorization, really. Anyone could do it.”
“You should tell that to Mrs. Reynolds,” Aaron joked, watching Reid closely.
Reid huffed another laugh, and for the first time since Aaron had run into him, his posture eased a little. He adjusted the scarf at his throat, then glanced toward the winding path. “Do you… want to keep walking?”
Aaron nodded. “Sure. Cool down can’t hurt.”
They fell into step together, the early morning quiet wrapping around them. The park was only beginning to stir, a jogger here and there, a dog pulling at a leash, the faint rustle of wind through branches.
After a stretch of silence, Reid spoke again. His voice was quieter as he did, as though sharing a secret. “I’ve been… walking a lot lately. Mornings, sometimes late at night.”
Aaron glanced at him, brow threading together in concern. “Trouble sleeping again?”
Reid’s mouth twitched into something that was almost a smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Not nightmares, no, just good old fashioned insomnia. Nothing new, really. It’s just been worse lately.”
Aaron nodded slowly, though the admission sat heavy in his chest. He knew what that was like. The urge to press returned. He wanted to ask Reid if he knew why now, or if he could do anything to help, but instead he tempered the feeling with a faint attempt at levity. “So, with all that extra time you could take up a workout routine.”
That drew an actual laugh out of Reid, light and unguarded. “You know me better than that, Hotch.”
Aaron smiled at the sound. It felt like winning a small victory.
Reid glanced at Aaron curiously then. “How’s Jack?”
Aaron’s own shoulders relax slightly, a small smile tugging at his mouth at the thought of his seven year old ball of energy. “He stayed the night with Jessica. We got back so late from Colorado that I figured it’d be better for him to sleep over there than try to catch up on sleep at home. I’m going to pick him up after this. He’s probably awake by now, bouncing around, excited for a weekend with dad.”
Reid’s eyebrows lifted. “What are your plans?”
Aaron laughed, shaking his head slightly. “Oh, everything he could think of in about five minutes when I called him yesterday before we boarded the plane. Museum in the morning, library after that, and pancakes for dinner. He’s very specific about the order, and insists we can’t skip any of it.”
Reid’s face lit up with a delighted smile. “That sounds wonderful. I take Henry to the museum sometimes. He’s… he’s the same way. He asks so many questions, I love it. It’s fun seeing him get excited about things you wouldn’t expect a kid to care about.”
Aaron grinned, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “It must be brilliant to be a kid who loves learning, and to get to go to the museum with a real genius. Jack would be all over you.”
Reid’s cheeks flushed again at the compliment. He ducked his head quickly, fumbling with the edge of his scarf. “I… uh, thanks. I… I just like seeing the excitement, I guess.”
Aaron’s smile softened. “I get that. It’s the same with Jack. I just try to make sure I don’t miss any of it when I can.”
They kept walking, conversation weaving easily between them. Half-trivia, half-professor’s lecture; Reid’s mind, as always, was a fountain of knowledge. He slipped into tangents about Shakespeare’s sonnets, about how language patterns changed when read aloud versus silently, about circadian rhythms and how some people were genetically predisposed to short sleep cycles. How kids retain more information than adults, so it's best to teach them as much as possible while they are young.
Aaron didn’t interrupt. He rarely did unless the team was on deadline. Too many times over the years he had seen the flicker of hurt cross Reid’s face when someone cut him off mid-thought. It cost Aaron nothing to listen, and truthfully, he enjoyed listening. Reid’s enthusiasm, his ability to tie together threads most people wouldn’t even see, was as delightful as it was fascinating.
Every so often, Aaron added a dry comment, or asked a thoughtful question that nudged Reid into another tangent. The longer they walked, the lighter the younger man seemed to become.
A few minutes later, a small coffee cart came into view, parked on the edge of the path near a cluster of benches. Reid’s eyes lit up slightly, and Aaron raised a brow.
“Coffee?” Reid asked, as though asking permission.
Aaron chuckled softly. “Seems like the natural next step. After you, Dr. Reid.”
Reid approached the cart with a shy sort of determination. “I’ll have my usual,” he told the barista.
Aaron smirked, shaking his head. “An oversized cup with a ridiculous amount of sugar and creamer, I'm assuming,” he asked. “You do realize all that sugar is going to make you crash before lunch, right?”
Reid gave him a look that was half defiant, half amused. “Better a crash than a bland cup of coffee, Hotch.”
Aaron laughed, placing his own order—black, no sugar, as always—and fell into step beside Reid as he moved toward an empty bench. The morning sun was soft now, filtering through the trees, and Aaron found himself unusually content to let the rest of his run slide in favour of Reid’s company.
As they sipped their drinks, their conversation picked up exactly where it had left off. Reid spoke animatedly about learning styles in children, historical tidbits about the museum Aaron had mentioned, and comparisons of how people responded to stimuli differently.
As he listened, Aaron’s gaze wandered despite himself. The morning sun caught Reid’s brown hair, turning it almost golden, and softened the sharp angles of his face, highlighting the delicate curve of his jaw. Then Aaron found himself noticing the long, elegant sweep of his eyelashes and the way his delicate fingers wrapped around the coffee cup.
There was a quiet intensity to Reid, an undercurrent of thoughtfulness that seemed to hum beneath the surface of every word. His brilliance was obvious, yes, but it was paired with an earnestness that made it endearing. Aaron could feel it pressing gently against the edges of his awareness. Reid wasn’t showy, which Aaron had always appreciated, having known so many intelligent people in his life. The Doctor’s brilliance never demanded attention or admiration, it simply existed, inherent and unassuming, and yet impossible to ignore.
It drew people in, although only certain people. Those capable of seeing beyond Reid’s awkward mannerisms and his rapid-fire tangents. People who understood that intelligence without empathy was hollow. Aaron had always known he was one of those people. He had recognized it years ago, back when Reid had first joined the team, and even then had felt the pull of it.
Now Aaron realized he had underestimated the depth of that pull. He was more intrigued by the younger man than he had ever registered before today.
He noticed details he hadn’t before, or perhaps had simply ignored. The handful of lines on his otherwise eternally youthful face, the specific selfsoothing ways he fidgeted as he spoke, the barely-there dimple at the corner of his mouth when he smiled or laughed.
All of it struck Aaron as unexpectedly… pretty?
In recognizing this, Aaron felt a wave of discomfort. These thoughts reached far past the professional respect and intellectual admiration he had always felt for Spencer. He knew exactly where this line of thinking was heading, and what it meant if he allowed himself to linger on it. Aaron straightened in his seat, taking a slow breath as he mentally scolded himself.
Focus.
You’re not gay, and this is not appropriate. He’s your subordinate. He’s years younger. He’s… he’s Reid. He’s just Reid.
Aaron gripped his cup a little tighter, willing his racing thoughts to realign themselves. He mentally ran through the list of the boundaries he maintained with the team. He had always kept a careful separation between personal and professional, and for good reason. These rigid structures ensured that he kept from ever letting anything like this from happening before. It was imperative that he never crossed those lines.
You’re being ridiculous. He has a brilliant mind. Nothing else. He’s fascinating. That’s all.
But even as the voice of reason drilled into him, he couldn’t entirely erase the awareness of Reid’s presence next to him. The gentle tilt of his head as he listened to Aaron’s interjections, the way he gestured lightly when emphasizing a point, the subtle, nervous habits that betrayed the self-consciousness Aaron knew well.
It was all frustratingly adorable.
Guilt twisted like a knife, a feeling he knew more intimately than most people ever would. Even entertaining the thought felt like a betrayal. Haley’s face rose in his mind, her laughter, her warmth, her life cut short because of him and the choices he made. The darkness that had followed him home. What right did he have to be thinking these things, and about Reid of all people?
Focus. Enjoy the conversation. Appreciate his intellect. Don’t go there.
Aaron let out a slow, measured exhale, forcing his eyes back to the bench, and the coffee, and the conversation. Reid’s words continued to flow, rich with knowledge and careful reasoning. Aaron forced himself to focus on the substance of what was being said, instead of the cadence of his voice or the way the morning sun made his hazel eyes blaze emerald.
No matter how magnetic, or clever, or undeniably captivating Spencer Reid could be, Aaron reminded himself firmly that whatever this was couldn’t become anything more than a private appreciation. Curiosity, admiration, even fascination, those were safe words. They belonged in the realm of mentors and colleagues, even friends. Anything else was a path he had no business walking, and he forced himself to shore up his walls again, stone by stone, as Reid spoke on.
He shifted slightly, schooling his expression back into something measured and professional, the same one he wore in conference rooms and briefing halls. SSA Aaron Hotchner. It felt safer that way, as if the right posture and a steady grip on his coffee cup could keep him from sliding too far into dangerous thoughts. He wasn’t about to risk the balance of his team by entertaining the idea that this spark of intrigue could mean something more.
Focus, he told himself again, and this time he managed it. He pushed the rest aside and let himself do what he’d always done best: listen.
Reid was talking now about an upcoming seminar he’d been asked to give at The Academy next month, his words quick but his tone tinged with uncertainty. “I… I was thinking of covering trauma bonding. They probably know it as Stockholm Syndrome. It’s one of those topics that always gets simplified too much in popular culture, and I want the cadets to understand the psychological nuance of it.” He hesitated, shifting the cup in his hands, “but I’m not sure where to start. Do you think it’s better to lead with the theory, or with case studies? I want them to understand the humanity behind it without losing the clinical framework.”
Aaron was just about to answer, already thinking through the balance of pragmatism and empathy, about the way young agents absorbed material best, when his phone buzzed sharply against the wood of the bench, rattling beside his cup. His chest tightened instinctively.
Work.
The team was off for the weekend, but there hadn’t been a stand-down order. They could be called back at any moment, and although Aaron had made his peace with the unpredictability of the job, the thought of disappointing Jack made his stomach sink. He’d been looking forward to it almost as much as his son.
His hand hovered over the phone for a beat too long, and when he finally picked it up he felt Reid’s eyes on him. Aaron glanced over and Reid offered him a sympathetic look. Aaron gave a small, grateful smile in return before he finally answered the phone.
“Hotchner.”
On the other end was not a panicked agent, a frantic local detective, or even Garcia, but the bland, nasal drone of Erin Strauss’ secretary. Aaron schooled his expression into neutrality, forcing down the flicker of surprise as the man spoke.
“Yes,” Aaron said. “He’s here with me.” His eyes flicked briefly to Reid, who was watching him with open curiosity and a small crease between his brows.
“Understood. We’ll be there within the hour.” Aaron ended the call and slid the phone back into his pocket, exhaling slowly through his nose.
Reid leaned forward slightly, clearly uncomfortable. “Hotch, what is it? Am I in trouble or something?”
Aaron shook his head quickly. “I'm sure it's nothing like that, Reid,” he reassured, but the truth was, he wasn’t entirely sure what it was yet. Strauss rarely reached out directly, and when she did, it was rarely good. Still, there had been no edge of urgency in the secretary’s voice, just instructions.
“But it was work?” Reid pressed.
“Yes, it was,” Aaron sighed, guilt about having to break the news to Jack turning his stomach. He gathered his cup and stood, mustering up one more small smile for Reid’s sake. “Come on. They want both of us at Quantico.”
“Is the team meeting us there?” Reid asked, rising to his feet, still studying Aaron as though trying to read between the lines.
Aaron gave a dry, humorless huff. “Apparently, not,” he said, causing Reid to look back at him with that same startled, wide eyed expression from earlier. Aaron shrugged apologetically and gestured toward the lot where he’d parked. “I’ll drive.”