Chapter Text
There was a lot of things the team didn't know about Spencer Reid.
They didn't know that he drank peppermint tea every night because it calmed his nerves, they didn't know he was fully trained in combat with knives, just like how they didnt know he was married, let alone married to a serial killer.
In all fairness to them, he didn't know either until she told him after her first victim one year into their marriage.
Spencer Reid was in fact not the only genius at that particular Las Vegas high school. The only friend he had when he joined high school was Pandora Anaira, who joined at the same time at the same age, and naturally they quickly bonded over their iq and shared interests. Pandora was not a shy girl, she was typically the one who threatened to rip out their bullies teeth while Spencer cowered behind her unnaturally tall frame.
She was the one who asked him to be her boyfriend at 12 years old. They both went to Caltech and continued being attached at the hip when Pandoras’s parents and siblings were killed in a home invasion, while she was forced to watch their torture at 15 years old. She was halfway through her second Phd, the first being in Criminology and the second in Linguistics. He proposed at 16, and they married the day after Spencer's 18th birthday in an off the books marriage officiants office.
She ended up achieving 4 Phds in Criminology, Linguistics, Psychology and History, along with 3 BAs in Classics, mathematics and architecture.4 years later she ran into one of her assailants broken down on a deserted road, so naturally she grabbed the gun from the back of her car and shot him executioner style. She drove home crying about her lack of hesitation and guilt, and told her husband about it. He understood, and he promised not to let her get caught but he would not kill with her.
After killing three months apart for two years she killed them all, and in doing so she taught herself how to properly defend herself and her husband. Spencer didn't need much convincing, and they paid in cash to an old CIA agent who could teach them.
Safe to say, they were never a normal couple. Hell, there is no mention of Pandora existing anywhere since she finished getting doctorates at 19. She dropped off the face of the earth, and that was the only way it could be that was safe for her and their two children, Celeste and Alexander. They were twins born shortly after Pandora went into hiding, and they were named in honour of her French ancestry.
Now the twins were nine years old, and life just got a whole lot more complicated for the Reid family.
For Spencer, his day started on a sofa in a police station in Las Vegas. The bau was chasing down a serial killer who was kidnapping women left right and centre with seemingly no pattern other than the fact that they were mothers and were between 25 and 30 years old. So far, all 5 he had kidnapped before he had kept for 48 hours before killing them and dumping the bodies. They were just waiting for any more leads, or any more inevitable missing women.
What they didn't realise, is that the lead would be hand delivered.
Hotch issued a summons for 9 am, and it was 8:50, and he needed coffee urgently so Spencer decided to risk it and run across the road to a cafe for marginally better coffee than what they had in the station. When he opened the door to the precinct however, he caught sight of a brown a4 package laid next to a pot. The most interesting thing though was the note attached to it. It was addressed to him, and it came with a promise it wasn't a bomb.
How comforting.
But bombs dont fit the profile, so he guessed it was fine.
If not, the only thing that he wasn't gonna be able to do was choose his casket.
It was worth the risk.
***
“Guys! We have a package!”
That was enough to get everyone running to the meeting room.
Garcia was the last one in, muttering apologies about how she had a lead she was tracking.
“Where did you find it, Reid?” Hotch asked, clearly not amused by the very amusing label.
“It was just outside the door, I went to go and get coffee and i saw it by the plant pot”
“You went to get coffee without me?” Morgan feigned hurt, throwing his hand to his heart.
“Are you gonna open it or just stare at it. Unless you wanna add x-ray vision to your list of various odd talents.” Emily spoke sarcastically, but like she would be completely unsurprised if Reid could actually do that,
Reid ripped the package open to reveal a non password encrypted computer, which he quickly passed over to Garcia.
“We need to figure out why this was addressed to you. Does anyone you know fit the criteria of his victims”
“Yeah, and I'm 79% sure that when you open that computer you are gonna find a live streamed video of a woman and two kids.” Sure enough,Garcia opened the computer with a gasp and turned it to show a woman in a concrete room with two kids handcuffed next to her.
“Ah, I may as well go home!” The call came from an annoyed Reid, much to the shock of the team.
“What the hell do you mean! You have a woman and two kids that you know handcuffed to chairs in a sketchy ass room and you're saying you may as well go home?”Morgan asked, his volume growing louder the more he spoke.
Spencer just leant back and let the room dissipate into complete madness, everyone yelling at him trying to understand why he said that.
Spencer gestured to the computer silently and asked Garcia to track the footage. He knew it wouldn't work but it was worth a shot.
“Woah woah, Spencer must have a reason for not being worried, right? So Reid, who is this and why are you not worried at all?” Prentiss pressed
“First off, I am worried” Spencer defended, ” I'm worried for him, because whatever chance he had of getting out alive just vanished, and secondly why is that important?”
“You know why it's important Reid, I really shouldn't have to explain it. And he's not getting out of the room? Why is that?” Hotch tried to wrestle an answer from Reid, and he knew he succeeded when Reid sighed.
“Fine, I'm only saying this once though. You know how I went to a public high school here in Vegas? Yeah, well I was certainly not the only genius there.” He nabbed the computer from Garcia and projected his file onto the screen. “Pandora Anaira was my age and attended at the same time as me with an IQ of 193. Obviously, she is 6 '2 now so she was a really tall kid, and always threatened to make people eat their own teeth. We both graduated at 12 and went to Caltech. I got 3 Phds and 3 BAs, but she got 4 Phds in Criminology, Linguistics, psychology and History, and 3 BAs in mathematics, classics and architecture. When she was 15 her family was murdered. I have missed one crucial thing out though.”
“Do spill” Garcia leaned in forward in anticipation.
“We started dating at 12,” Spencer shrugged. “I proposed when we were 16 and we got married the day after I turned 18.”
“Jesus christ kid, you're married?” Was Derek's immediate reply
“ That… was not what I expected. At all.” Was Emily's reply
“You didn't tell me so I could get you a gift!” Was Garcia's annoyed but joyous reply
“Are the kids yours” Were the questions of many
“Yes, the twins are mine. Pandora left Caltech to have them when we were 19. Their names are Celeste and Alexander.”
“As shocking as this is, the unsub just entered the room” Garcia projected the image up onto the big screen.
Pandora was sitting handcuffed in the middle of the room next to Alexander and Celeste. As the guy, Smith walked in there was a flash of scenery in the background. Spencer leaped up, grabbed some keys and bolted out of the door.
Everybody was too stunned to follow, so they opted to stay instead.
They watched in horror as Smith stared for 10 minutes, before he started to move forward to grab her hair. Suddenly, she shot up, grabbed his hand and stabbed a knife through it. She smiled manically through his screams
Spencer walked in casually and tossed a knife at Pandora, before covering his eyes in a mimicking of blindness. She smiled and told the children to close their eyes before ripping his throat out with the knife Spencer had thrown her
“You're an absolute snail, you know. I could hear you telling them everything.” She smiled before pecking him on the lips. He smiled and pulled her into a hug.
“I didn't want to come but they were looking at me like I had just snapped a puppies neck. I think they are surprised that I'm married with kids.” He sounded resigned and annoyed at the fact. He turned to face Celeste and Alexander, who grinned up at him like he was a lit up Christmas tree.
“You alright kids?” Spencer bent down to eye level with them as the nodded enthusiastically
good