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pathologicalreid · 14 days ago

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lock and key | s.r.

in which an act of violence - and subsequent serious injury - brings the truth to the surface and initiates a change

margotober masterlist

who? spencer reid x fem!reader category: angst content warnings: abduction, car accident, knife, stabbing, stabbing with knife, greek mythology, jareau!reader, rewrite of 8x12 "zugzwang" (just because maeve isn't here doesn't mean i'm letting spencer get by trauma-free), the girls who get it, get it, secret relationship, hospitals, not proofread, yes the zugzwang thing gets dropped but that's because it was never the kidnapper it was always the replicator, did i miss something probably but i can't see straight rn word count: 4.86k a/n: i rewrote this entire fic because i decided i didn't like it two hours before it was supposed to go up. and now here we are. almost 5k words later. it's 2:30 a.m. going back to my jareau!reader roots and rewriting an entire episode.

He frowned at the text that you’d just sent him. Just one word, a chess term. Spencer wasn’t entirely sure you knew what it meant, more so, he wasn’t sure why you’d text it to him at seven-thirty in the morning.

He’d expected you to beat him to the office this morning, knowing you left his apartment before the sun had the chance to rise so you could get a fresh change of clothes and repack your go bag. Your apartment was closer to Quantico, so it wasn’t presumptuous of him to assume you would make it there first.

Spencer stood corrected when he walked in, finding your desk completely devoid of your active presence. He looked around for you briefly, knowing you sometimes liked to catch up on sleep in JJ’s old liaison office when you were the first to arrive in the morning, but all he found was your sister, a scowl on her face while she spoke with Hotch in his office.

The two of them noticed him lurking, Hotch opening the door and nodding at him in greeting, “Let’s meet in the roundtable room, Garcia’s waiting for us.”

“What’s going on?” Spencer asked, following them around the walkway to the briefing room, only receiving a shake of the head from JJ in response.

Penelope looked disturbed in a way that Spencer hadn’t seen her in years. That much made sense to him, the only reason Hotch would start a briefing before the rest of the team got here was if there was a case that matched the level of urgency. “This morning the FBI system was tripped because Y/N’s location was glitching. It flashed from Los Angeles to Moscow to Cancun until finally settling on an unmarked location somewhere in this general area.”

Spencer frowned, looking at the map that was being displayed on the screen in front of him, “That’s nearly eight hundred miles of ground to cover.”

Sighing, Garcia nodded, “Because of whatever the UnSub did to hack into the locator in her phone, we can’t get an accurate location. I’m working on refining it, but that could take hours.”

A pit settled in Spencer’s chest as he looked over at JJ, a dark, hollow look on her face as she stared at her phone. He couldn’t commiserate with her—nobody knew the two of you were even dating. “JJ,” Hotch spoke up, “You were the last person to see her before you left yesterday, did she say anything about going to meet someone or do anything?”

JJ blinked in confusion, “No, she didn’t tell me about any plans or…” Her voice trailed off, “I think she was seeing someone knew. She’s been acting different, being cagey about plans.”

Blake and Rossi walked into the bullpen, their arrival catching Hotch’s attention as he stepped out of the roundtable room to speak with them. Spencer followed, “Hotch.”

“I know, Reid,” he said, holding his hand up in a waiting gesture. Of course, he did, because in your tirade to hide your relationship from the general public, you had insisted on telling Hotch, wanting to get the HR paperwork out of the way.

Spencer sighed, the pit in his chest growing exponentially as he turned back into the roundtable room, slipping his phone out of his pocket and handing it to Garcia, “I got a text this morning from Y/N,” he explained, his eyes following his teammates as they filtered into the room. “It came in after her phone’s location was hacked.”

Shaking her head, JJ looked over at Spencer, “Why would she text you first thing in the morning?”

He shrugged in response, “I’m not entirely sure,” he half-lied. “I do know what the word used in the message means. Zugzwang. It’s the term used in chess when a player realizes they’ll inevitably be checkmated.”

“When did the two of them break up?” Hotch asked, looking over at JJ for the answer to his question.

They were headed to speak with your ex-boyfriend, there was nothing they had found that would implicate him in your disappearance, but it was the best chance they had at a lead. Spencer bit his tongue to stop himself from revealing the answer.

JJ hummed, “A while ago, a year maybe? She didn’t really talk about it, one day, she just stopped bringing him up.”

Sixteen months, nearly to the date, it was a few days past at that point since the night you’d called Spencer in tears, needing him to pick you up from the same house that the SUV was pulling up to now. The two of you had been together for nearly a year, on and off again, before he finally snapped.

Some of the things he said to you were things that you’d never repeated, even to Spencer. Pulling into the driveway made him feel sick to his stomach as he recalled the way you cried in his apartment that night.

“Reid?” JJ’s voice broke through his reminiscence, she had already gotten out of the car, standing outside and waiting for Spencer to step out before the three of them approached the porch.

He reached into his pocket for his credentials, staying at the back of the pack while Hotch knocked on the door before pulling his badge out. Your ex-boyfriend opened the door, “Hello?” He was confused, rightfully so—it wasn’t every day that a group of FBI agents showed up at your front door. He eyed Hotch and JJ before he met Spencer’s eyes. Garrett’s eyes narrowed, “You.”

Hotch’s head snapped to the side, glaring at Spencer for a moment before facing forward, “Garrett Graves?” The Unit Chief’s voice was commanding, staring at your ex with a preconceived notion that your relationship had fallen apart because of him. He was the leader of the team, and he took any attack against the members of his team personally.

“Yes?” He said, obviously bewildered at the sight of the agents on his porch, “Where’s Y/N?”

Crossing her arms in front of her chest, JJ looked up at Garrett, “That’s what we’d like to ask you.”

Spencer had to give him credit, Garrett looked absolutely stunned at your sister’s revelation, but nothing that Spencer knew about him led him to believe he’d act innocent if he was truly guilty. He had the personality type that would confess to the abduction but lead the BAU on a wild goose chase from an interrogation room.

No, the person who had you didn’t want to be caught, and he didn’t want the team to find you. This interview would be a waste of his time, there was absolutely no information about you that Garrett could provide. Spencer knew every important, esoteric detail about you—your ex-boyfriend wouldn’t have anything useful for him.

Garrett peered back at Spencer, “I’m sure anything you want to know, he can tell you,” he said, bitterness altering his tone.

Hotch looked over his shoulder to Spencer, “Why don’t you sit this one out?”

Ignoring the fact that he had just been told to kick rocks, Spencer retreated to the SUV, shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning against the passenger door while JJ and Hotch were invited inside the house. He hoped you weren’t somewhere outside, the temperatures dropped to below freezing at night this time of year, and he didn’t remember you wearing a jacket when you left his apartment this morning.

Finally alone—away from your sister, at least—Spencer had a moment to process the reality of his situation. You were missing, likely abducted as a result of your job, and he didn’t even have an exact time to go off. His chest felt tight in a way it hadn’t in years, the sheer joy of knowing he had you in his life felt like it was fading away because he didn’t have you. He had no idea where you were, and for a brief moment, he considered the fact that the loss of you might kill him too.

You were the only one who knew how to bring him back down to earth anymore. Snapping him back to reality whenever he started to spiral.

This time, the sound of his phone ringing pulled him out of his Charybdis of fear, “Hello,” he answered the phone, holding the device to his ear as he pretended the last five minutes of thought had never happened.

“Hey, kid,” Derek greeted over the phone, an unavoidable solemn note in his voice. “Garcia managed to track down Y/N’s car, it’s down on a side street, it looks like she was avoiding the highway.”

Spencer looked down at his shoes, “The exit that she needs to take to get to her apartment closes for construction at night.” The explanation flew from his mouth before he could remember that he wasn’t supposed to know that, but his brain was moving at an altered pace right now, unable to think past anything other than finding you.

The other line was silent for a moment, “Right,” Derek said doubtfully. “It looks like someone rear-ended her,” he noted, the sound of cars rushing by cluing Spencer into the traffic.

“That time of night on that road it would’ve needed to be on purpose, there’s no reason to be following someone that closely on an empty street,” Spencer processed the information, pulling up a map in his head of the area where your car was. “So, it was a bump and grab,” Spencer thought aloud, it wasn’t a particularly sophisticated crime, but with all of the other evidence, he hadn’t expected it to be.

Morgan reaffirmed his suspicions, “I’m surprised she wasn’t more on edge that early in the morning. What do you think she was doing all the way out here anyway?”

His stomach churned; you had been leaving his apartment. It was his fault you had been out there at that time. “It was early, her inhibitions were down, she was probably tired,” he rambled off. “Besides, you heard JJ, she thinks she has a boyfriend,” he bit out.

“Uh huh,” Derek responded, “And what do you think about that?”

Leaning his head back, Spencer stared at the sky, “Did you find her phone? Was it in the car?”

There was no way Derek didn’t get why Spencer ignored his question, but he moved on anyway, “Yeah, that’s the other thing. There’s no sign of that text message.”

Another mystery to add to the plethora, Spencer closed his eyes and sighed, “Thanks for letting me know.”

“Kid,” Derek said, stopping Spencer from hanging up, “Why did the text go to you and not JJ? Wouldn’t that make more sense?”

Spencer paused, staring at the backs of his eyelids, “I’m not sure.” His answer, at least, was mostly truthful. It would make sense for the message to have gone to JJ, but JJ wouldn’t have understood the meaning.

That meant the person who sent the message likely knew about you and Spencer’s relationship, and that did very little to comfort him.

Helpless was not a term that Spencer liked to use to describe himself, but as the orange glow of the sunset sept into the BAU, he was beginning to feel that way. You were still missing, and with every passing moment, Spencer knew that the statistics grew increasingly bleak.

Stepping away from his computer monitor, Spencer made his way to the bathroom, he didn’t need to use it, but the silent hum of the fan was better than the constant chattering in the bullpen. Everyone imaginable had been pulled in on this case, everyone wanting to pitch in to find a missing FBI agent, but not for the first time, Spencer wished everyone would just shut up.

Turning on the tap, he cupped his hands under the water and splashed his face, focusing the cold water on his eyes, hoping they could hone his focus. He tore a paper towel from the dispenser and pressed it into his face as the door swung open, the familiar tapping of boots sounded from behind him until they stopped.

“You know, from my count, it’s been about eight months,” Rossi said, meeting Spencer’s eyes in the mirror, his hands in his pockets as he raised his eyebrows, waiting for a response.

Sighing, Spencer turned off the water, “Nine,” he corrected, foregoing his usual habit of providing more precise time frame. He wasn’t surprised that Rossi had it figured out, he always did, but still, he asked, “How did you figure it out?”

Rossi shrugged, watching as Spencer moved to throw away the paper towel, “I am very good at my job.”

Spencer laughed, a mixture between a laugh and a scoff as he looked in the mirror just to find that he still looked like a disaster. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” he confessed, the first time he had let his desolation truly show to any member of the team.

“You’re gonna go back out there, and we are gonna do what we do best,” Rossi insisted, “We help the people who need us.”

Nodding, Spencer took a deep breath before heading back out to the bullpen, following Penelope through the glass doors as the technical analyst made her way over to JJ. It shouldn’t bother him that everyone went to JJ first, but it did, even though no one knew any better. “Does the last name Delphino mean anything to you?”

JJ frowned in response, “No, why—should it?”

His lips parted, not worrying about holding himself back, “Paul Delphino is the name of Y/N’s next-door neighbor.”

Garcia made a dinging noise, quickly moving on to continue her explanation, “Paul Delphino did not show up for work this morning. Why is this significant? His family, the Delphinos, owns a lot of commercial property in the DMV and a suspicious 911 call just came in from one of those properties stating that there’s a light on in a building that is slated for demolition tomorrow. The caller said they heard screaming coming from the building.”

Hotch looked around at the team, “Morgan contact SWAT. JJ, Morgan, you’re with me, Blake, Reid, with Rossi. Garcia, send the address to our phones.” Everyone was already moving as he distributed orders, heading to the elevator, and getting one step closer to you.

He’s been watching you for months. From the exact moment he moved into the apartment next to yours, Paul declared himself your soulmate. You recognized his name when you first met, and it came up in one of your late-night Wikipedia binges. Paul Delphino was a member of a disturbingly wealthy family, up until his parents disowned him for suspicious cash transactions.

Your head hurt like hell, drips of blood were encrusted along your hairline, and you were fairly convinced that you were dying. Your vision blurred around the edges when you followed the noise of your captor around the room with your eyes, your body slightly suspended in the air by your arms, standing on your tiptoes to prevent too much strain on your shoulders.

Seeking comfort in your memory, you remembered this morning, kissing your sleepy boyfriend as he tiredly asked you to stay, but you needed to go back to your own apartment. You told him you loved him, which was the truth, but you needed a morning with your things.

If needing a morning with your things led to an untimely demise, then at least the last thing you told Spencer was that you loved him.

Long, unending scratches ran down your arms and legs, they weren’t deep enough to scar, but as they scabbed over, they began to itch. Cuts and scrapes weren’t going to kill you, but the knife in your abdomen likely would.

You tried to keep yourself as still as possible, your personal experience with stab wounds was lackluster, but you knew that the blade could be preventing any further bleeding. You weren’t sure if you should be grateful that Paul couldn’t get it up, seeing as he elected to stab you for a sexual release.

The black of your t-shirt concealed any blood on your torso, so you weren’t sure exactly how much blood you’d lost, but judging by the way the world was losing its color, things weren’t looking good for you.

You breathed out slowly through your nose, watching Paul pace back and forth in front of you, faint lantern light being the only thing illuminating whatever hellscape you were in. “Paul,” you said, your voice nearly a gasp, “I need help.”

At this point, you had no idea what your plan was, seriously considering asking him to let you heal so that he could come back and stab you again in a few weeks. What else did you have to offer him? He scoffed in response, continuing his pacing until his steps faltered and he stalked over to you, causing you to flinch. “Did you call them?”

You groaned in pain, “Who the fuck could I have called?” You yelped like a wounded animal when he pulled the knife from your stomach.

He pointed the knife at your face, the metallic tang of your own blood filling your nostrils as you fought off a wave of nausea. “Why would you call the FBI on me?”

Tears flooded your eyes at his words. My sister’s here, you thought to yourself. Spencer’s here. “I didn’t,” you choked out, trying to remember how to breathe while you were dying.

Paul’s head snapped to look behind him, the rustling of SWAT and agents scaring him enough that he dropped the knife to the floor before taking off, leaving you alone in the room for someone to find.

Grunting, you tried to free your hands on your own, but you no longer had the physical strength to do anything except for hang. Tipping your head back in an attempt to keep your airway open, you called out, “JJ!”

You never thought the sight of your sister’s blonde ponytail would make tears run down your face, but as soon as she made her way into the room, saltwater left marks on your blood-stained face. “He went that way,” you jutted your head to the side, watching as the people in front of you stayed true to themselves. JJ ran off to chase Paul, and Spencer holstered his weapon to help you down.

“Hey,” he whispered, holding you while a SWAT member used a knife to undo your restraints, and Spencer caught you before your legs had a chance to give out.

You looked around the room, Morgan had gone with JJ to play cat and mouse, but Blake stayed behind with Spencer while they tried to get you sorted out. Everyone else would panic, announcing to the rest of the room that you were seemingly very slowly bleeding out would send the space into a frenzy, so you didn’t.

Spencer draped an FBI jacket over your shoulders, one of the spares that was kept in the SUVs.

“I need help,” you mumbled, your lips barely parting as you tried to save your strength to walk to an ambulance. “Spence,” you gasped, using your own hand to apply pressure to the wound.

He nodded, instinctively pressing a kiss to your forehead, “I know, I know.” His voice was tight, and you hated yourself for doing this to him.

Groaning, you shook your head, “I’m bleeding,” you murmured, watching as realization set into his features, wavering between horror and determination, Spencer nodded at you.

“Reid?” Blake called after the two of you, now noticing the drops of blood that were where you were standing, now being tracked through the building by your shuffling footsteps.

Spencer didn’t answer her, his attention was entirely on you as he kept you upright, bringing you closer and closer to the flashing lights of the ambulance. The cold of the night burned your nose as the fresh air gave you a new sense of determination, matching Spencer’s. “I’m sorry,” you told him, but you weren’t sure he could even hear you as you approached the ambulance.

“You need to get her to a hospital,” Spencer insisted once the EMTs were in earshot, his chest heaving as your feet dragged more and more with every step. “Please,” he begged them, helping you onto a stretcher before hauling himself into the rig, a one-track mind thinking of nothing else other than getting you the help that you need.

Fifty-fifty were the odds that you gave yourself once you found a firm enough grasp on consciousness. There was a fifty percent chance you were going to open your eyes and be met with the harsh fluorescence of a hospital. There was a fifty percent chance that bastard Minos was going to send you straight to the Fields of Punishment.

You changed your bets once the scent of antiseptic burned your nostrils, you flinched at the smell, earning some soft shushing from the person on the other side of your eyelids. Sighing, you open your eyes just a sliver, “Hey, J,” you greeted her, your voice raspy from lack of use and probably a breathing tube.

Hospitals made your stomach churn, hunger and blood loss certainly contributed to the feeling as you tried to reorient yourself with the land of the living. “Hi, Ducky,” she whispered, taking your hand in hers and squeezing it reassuringly, “You’re okay.”

Humming, you closed your eyes again, being awake in stages, “Haven’t heard that one in a while,” you murmured, smiling softly. “I feel like shit,” you groaned, trying to shift in the bed just to be met with a shooting pain in your abdomen. Pieces of the puzzle started coming back to you.

“The doctors said you were really lucky, the knife didn’t hit any organs or blood vessels,” he told you, giving you an update on your condition. Waking up in hospitals always gave you an odd feeling, being surrounded by a group of people who knew more about how you were doing than you did.

Frowning, you let your eyes flutter open, “Yeah, lucky,” you breathed. “That’s exactly how I feel right now.”

JJ smoothed some of your hair away from your forehead, “He’s dead, Ducky.”

You furrowed your eyebrows, “Did you shoot him?”

She shrugged slyly, “I let Morgan take the shot.”

That was a lie you let her get away with. If JJ had been the one to shoot Paul, there likely would’ve been an investigation opened because of your familial tie—Strauss would’ve had her hands all over that one. This way, there was no question about ethics. “Thank you,” you whispered to her, “I’m…” your voice trailed off as you noticed someone else in the corner of the room.

Following your gaze, JJ looked confused, “He hasn’t moved all night.” Spencer was almost comedically folded in a hospital chair, his wrist bent beneath his chin as he slept. “He rode with you to the hospital, and I’m not sure—”

“I’m in love with him,” you cut her off mid-sentence. You watched your sister’s confusion morph into shock as she looked from you to Spencer and back again. “Spencer and I have been dating for the last nine months, and we haven’t told anyone. It wasn’t because we wanted to keep anyone in the dark or because we didn’t want you to know, we just liked having something that was ours.”

Surprise was clear on her face while she searched her mind for clues into what you were telling her. You could tell she was thinking, you recognized her thinking face as well as you would if you were looking in a mirror. “You and Spencer?”

You nodded stiffly, moving your upper lip to adjust your nasal cannula, “Yeah. Me and Spencer.”

“So, when I tried to pin the two of you together last fall… you were already together?” She asked, recalling a night spent as a team at O’Keefe’s.

Giving her a lopsided smile, you held your hands out in mock surrender, “Yeah,” you echoed.

She just continued staring at you up until her phone rang, she apologized to you before picking it up, greeting Will over the phone, and stepping out into the hallway.

You tilted your head to the side, getting a better look at Spencer sleeping in the chair, “Spence,” you called out to him, remembering that you’re in a hospital and raising your voice is frowned upon, even as a patient. “Spencer,” you crooned, trying to wake him up without startling him.

He didn’t so much as budge, you tried again, but when he didn’t stir, you had to turn to violence.

With an aching arm, you grabbed a pen from the table attached to your hospital bed and flung it at him, gasping when the pen hit him in the head. His eyes opened, looking at you groggily as he stretched out his wrist.

“Hey,” he said, instantly over his irritation of being pelted with a BIC pen, “You’re up.” Spencer looked around the room noting no sign of your sister before he took her seat at your bedside, “You look good.”

You laughed slightly, the movement felt good spiritually, but physically it pulled at your stitches. “I look like shit,” you corrected him, you didn’t even need a mirror to know that.

Spencer smiled at you fondly, fingers carefully dancing along your hairline. His touch was tentative like he was afraid a single touch would break you, “You’ve certainly looked better,” he admitted.

The grin that bloomed on your face felt foreign after a day of pain, but it relieved you to stretch those muscles. “I’m sorry,” you whispered, noticing the way his hand faltered in its movements.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he reminded you, not even sure which it he was referring to, he simply wanted to know you weren’t to blame for any of it.

You hummed, adjusting yourself on your pillows, “But I took advantage of you.”

In response, Spencer reached out a hand, placing the back of it on your forehead, checking for a fever as if you weren’t hooked up to a vital monitor.

Swatting his hand away, you looked at him solemnly, “No, I took advantage of your rational minds when I asked you for help outside of the warehouse. I made the decision to ask you because I knew you would help me first and panic second.”

“Honey,” Spencer said, gingerly moving strands of hair off of your forehead, “You are severely underestimating my abilities if you think I wasn’t panicking while I was helping you.”

You pressed your lips together thoughtfully, looking at him, “I wanna go home,” you murmured, looking up at him with wide eyes.

He looked at you sadly, “Tomorrow, probably. I’ll bring you home and unpack the first load of your things in my place. You can sit on the couch and tell me where everything goes.”

“Spencer,” you said, gentle chide in your tone.

Your boyfriend hummed, “You didn’t seriously think I’d let you keep living in that apartment, did you?”

Honestly, you hadn’t had the time for the thought to cross your mind, but Spencer had always thought you lived in a bad part of town. He was right, of course, but this was a lot to digest all at once. “You don’t have to; I can just find a new apartment.”

He leaned over the bed, “It’s too late. I already asked Penelope to come over this weekend and help me go through my closet and dresser.”

“Did you tell her?” You asked him, reaching a hand up and tucking a strand of his hair behind his ear.

Spencer shook his head, “No, but I suppose we’ll have to.”

Chewing on the inside of your lip, you raised your eyebrows, “Well, I told JJ.” You informed him of the fact that you’d abrogated the seal of silence on your relationship.

“Rossi knows,” he told you like it should’ve been news to you.

You shrugged, “He figured it out months ago. I thought you knew that.”

Your boyfriend frowned, “How would I have known that?”

“He profiled us, it’s like reverse profiling,” you explained.

Spencer chuckled softly, “You’re right, my mistake.” His brown eyes shimmered as he took your hand in his, bringing it to his mouth and pressing a soft kiss to your knuckles.

He never took his eyes off of you, watching you like a hawk at every moment—you weren’t even sure he was blinking properly. “What’s still bothering you?”

Shaking his head, he dismissed your question immediately. You felt safe with him, when your sister returned to the doorway, she faltered at the sight in front of her. Spencer was resting his head on your hospital bed, softly chatting to you about sea otters while your eyes fluttered shut.

Before you fell asleep, she raised her eyebrows and held up a thumbs up, asking if you were okay.

A brief nod in response was all you needed, smiling at her softly while she went back to her phone call.

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