Chapter Text
Spencer wasn’t the greatest at anything physical, not to mention something that demanded strength as well as coordination. He was tall and lean, sure, but he walked into things on the daily and could hardly catch a pencil thrown at him, let alone cope with the recoil of a gun.
He sighed, staring across the room at the target wearily. Three bullet holes, each at least several inches away from K5, a headshot. He barely managed to pass his firearms test the first time, and since then he’s only ever had to hold his weapon at the ready on the field, he hasn’t been the one to fire a shot for real in months.
“On SWAT, we broke shots down into three steps.” Hotch is taking time out of his day to help him train, and he’s breaking it down into steps, into a very specific routine of motions which is exactly how Spencer learns and works through every day. “One, front sight,” Hotch explains. He’s behind Spencer’s shoulders a good foot away. “Focus on the front sight, not on the target.” They had been over this hundreds of times now. Spencer followed every step as perfectly as he could, and yet he still misses the target almost every time. “Two, controlled trigger press. Three, follow through. After the shot, you come right back to the target. Now what did you do wrong?”
“I didn't follow through.” He states simply.
“Right. You came off the target to see where you hit.” Spencer slumps his shoulders slightly, holding back a second sigh.
“Hotch, my firearms qualification is tomorrow morning.” He put the gun down on the bench in front of them. They were the only ones in the training room. He pulled off the protective earmuffs. “I barely passed my last one.” He feels a steadying hand on his shoulder, and he turns to look at his boss. He steps aside when he notices Hotch pulling out his own gun, pushing his earmuffs back on quickly.
“Front sight, trigger press,” he fires, hits the target’s forehead directly, the gun barely moving as he braces against the recoil. “Follow through,” he finishes as he tucks his gun back away. “You do those three things, you'll hit your target every time.”
Yeah, right.
His next three shots hit the target at least, in a region you definitely aren’t supposed to aim for. “Did Elle teach you that?” Hotch asks humorously from behind him.
“They’re gonna take away my gun,” he huffs.
“Profilers aren’t required to carry,” Hotch points out.
“Yeah, and yet you carry two of them.” He watches as Hotch unclips his ankle holster and fires again. He hits the chest perfectly all three times.
“When I joined the BAU, Gideon said to me, ‘you don’t have to carry a gun to kill someone.’” Spencer frowns, jutting his hip and crossing his arms as he stares at the holes lining the paper target across from them.
“I don’t get it,” he says bitterly.
“You will,” Hotch promises. “Good luck tomorrow,” he gives one firm pat to Spencer’s shoulder before dropping his arm and pulling off the remainder of his protective gear. Spencer watches him leave, groaning quietly to himself as he readies to fire more practice shots.
This test was going to be hell.
----
“Reid failed his qualification,” Elle tells Gideon when he walks through the door, coffee in hand.
“He can re-test in two weeks,” Gideon says, unbothered.
“Yeah, but he’s going to be embarrassed about it,” she turns, as does Gideon. They both watch Derek carefully. “So, let’s not mention it,” she suggested pointedly.
“Yeah, let’s not,” Gideon nods in his direction. Derek holds up one hand in surrender, closing the book he hadn’t been bothering to read.
“Not a word,” he lies evenly.
Spencer is wearing a fully buttoned red shirt with a dark sweater overtop when he comes in. He’s sporting dark bags and an obvious distaste for being in the office. Yet, Derek finds himself sidling over innocently. “Hey,” he leans against the barrier between the younger agent’s desk. Reid looks up at him, a glare already on his face. It’s all in good fun. It always was with Pretty Boy. “We’re all here for you,” he says seriously.
He was well aware of Spencer’s ability to profile when Derek was saying something serious. He had a tell, and even if it was followed up with something entirely different to seriousness, the kid was always able to understand he was looked out for. “I’m serious,” he says, just to ram home the point that yeah, he was about to poke fun, but he would always be there if needed. Spencer raises his eyebrows, looking disbelieving. His head was craned back, throat exposed as he swallowed.
Derek leans in, crouching slightly until he’s at face level with the kid. “If you ever need anything,” he untangles the string on the whistle and drapes it around Spencer’s neck, lifting it up to his lips. He gives a short blow, “just blow on that,” he grins. The whistle jingles when he lets it drop against Spencer’s chest.
Normally, Spencer was the type to either disregard Derek’s jokes, or actively thrive alongside them. Pretty Boy began as a joke. In the beginning, Spencer had frowned, assuming the worst of his new co-worker that looked and acted too much like the jocks he endured throughout high school. After months of listening and silently profiling, his defences lowered, and the most Derek got was an incredibly pink faced, stuttering genius that averted his eyes.
Spencer was not the type to lash out.
He peeled off the whistle, dropping it loudly against his desk, pushed back his chair and stormed past the older agent with a scowl of utter animosity on his face.
“Kid,” Derek said, the smile still on his face but slightly more resigned now. He reached out a hand, ready to stop Spencer.
“Morgan, just fuck off,” he spat.
Derek balked, taking a step back as Spencer shoved past his outstretched hand. The absolute disgust in his words, the violent hatred in his tone, it was enough to keep him quiet long enough for the younger man to slip out of the bull pen without question.
“Warned you,” Elle said gently.
“That… that wasn’t – that was a bit of a reaction. Reid doesn’t – he doesn’t act like that.” He said plaintively.
“He’s never been insecure about something like this before,” JJ pointed out as she placed matching files on each desk. She paused briefly at Spencer’s desk, “he can meet us in the conference room.” Her voice was hesitant, despite how much the fact that Spencer had never been insecure at work made sense, the outburst was too unlike him to ignore.
----
“Where’s our resident Boy Wonder?” Garcia asked as everyone settled themselves, readied for the briefing. Elle frowned in Morgan’s direction; Gideon rolled his eyes in understanding.
“I’ll go talk to him,” Hotch said. “I’ve already looked over the case, you can go ahead with the briefing.” Garcia nodded once, watching Hotch leave before turning to look at Morgan with concern blazing in her eyes. He shook his head, implying he had no idea.
He jogged down the steps, taking two more sets before walking into the room the kid always got distracted in for long enough to drown out the noises of the bull pen.
Reid was flicking through his case file in silence, sitting on one of the filing boxes with his legs crossed and tucked beneath him. If Hotch hadn’t have been looking, he would have missed the kid folded away in there.
“Reid,” he began. The younger agent looked up, his body language tensing up briefly before he sighed, pushing aside the case and uncurling himself. “I know it’s tough, and I get that nobody on this team will understand how you’re feeling right now… but honestly kid,” he slouches against the wall of files and looks at Reid directly. “It doesn’t matter. We know you well enough to not care if you passed or not. It’s trivial, alright?”
“You know, I’ve actually been thinking about it,” Reid says leadingly. “And I don’t really need my qualification. I hardly use it in the field. In actuality, over twenty-nine percent of age –”
“Reid, just because you didn’t pass this one doesn’t mean you’ll never get better.” Hotch says carefully. The younger agent shakes his head and looks away.
“I don’t even want to carry a gun. They’re pointless. You even said so yourself.”
“No,” Hotch quickly corrects. “I said you didn’t need a gun to kill somebody, not that you shouldn’t have one.” He takes a breath, steadying himself. His heart was racing with the thought of having Reid out in the field, talking down unsubs and putting himself in dangerous situations without a weapon. “You still need to be able to defend yourself with more than words.”
“Whatever,” Reid grunts as he hauls himself off the shelf and onto the floor. “Let’s just get this case over with.”
----
Morgan kept his distance from Reid as much as he could. He recognised he had crossed a line somewhere, and even if it was unlike Reid to react the way he did, he still gave the kid space.
The only exception was when they realised their unsub had been positioned as the mock unsub in their simulation, which put Reid in the line of fire of a professional gunman. He had yelled, given the kid as much of a warning as he possibly could have, but when he was pushed to the side rather abruptly, and Reid’s breathing picked up too much to pass off as an adrenaline rush, he almost regretted it.
“Don’t – just, please don’t touch me.” Reid had said quickly, his hands clenching, and his tone forced. The bubble Morgan had worked out was expanding, and the kid’s reactions to physical contact were worsening.
And shit he immediately thought. Because he had said variations of those words to so many people after certain experiences. But that was just his head and mind overthinking, overreacting to something small.
Nothing like that was supposed to happen to Spencer. Nothing like that happened to other people – other boys. It was beyond unlikely, especially in their line of work with the amount of security and background checks that go on behind the scenes.
Yet, he still found himself quietly speaking with Penelope when they arrived back in Quantico after the case. Hotch had told them everything, Reid had made a perfect headshot, not much trouble with the weapon considering he had decided against re-testing for his qualification.
“Yeah, it came through on the system. He wasn’t even close to passing, which I found odd,” Penelope said disbelievingly. Derek leaned in, watching her pull up the report and accompanying scores. “Nil in every section, like he didn’t even show up to the test,” she points out.
Nil in every category was impossible. Hypothetically speaking, even if Spencer had missed every single shot, he still would have been marked on his stance, how he held the gun, how he coped with the recoil and numerous other things. Unless he had somehow managed to shoot himself in the face, there was no way in hell he could have gotten nil on every criterion.
“Reid,” he says seriously. The conversation with Penelope still rung heavy in his head. The younger agent tilts in his chair, looking up at him unhappily.
“If you’re going to make a joke, just leave now.”
“I’m not here to poke fun, okay?” Derek rubs his forehead, “and I’m sorry for even doing it in the first place.” He has to know. He has to prove to himself that he’s being crazy. “I want to do some target practice with you.” Spencer opens his mouth, ready to argue. “But, just now, with me. You don’t need to qualify; I just want to practice with you. It has nothing to do with convincing you to re-test, okay?” Is this about qualifying, or about the hoops you have to jump through in order to qualify?
“No – no thanks. I don’t – I’m busy tonight,” Spencer replies hastily.
Something fucking happened at that shooting range.
Derek knew. In his stomach and his chest, the ache was there, and it was implicative of a deeper issue. Spencer wouldn’t act like this if he didn’t have a reason to and it was obvious when his behaviour changed. Failing a test was one thing. Failing with a total zero, lashing out whenever it’s mentioned and refusing to return to the gun-range was an entirely different thing, and not a good one.