Chapter Text
Watching Aaron Hotchner regress was truly an amazing thing.
Working in the FBI was stressful enough, let alone being the unit chief of the BAU, and leading—and Rossi says this with love—a bunch of crazy, chaotic agents who tended to be danger magnets. Seriously, Reid alone has gotten hurt more times in the past month than Rossi had in the past year!
If there was anybody who needed the time to regress and destress, it was Aaron.
He didn’t regress too often—he was a busy man, after all, with his job and his son—but Rossi tried to set aside time at least once a month for little time. Rossi would bring Hotch home with him after work and have him stay the weekend. During that weekend, Aaron would get to regress and do just about anything he wanted (within reason), and Dave got to spoil him! Aaron deserved to be spoiled.
Rossi sat in his armchair, watching Aaron play with his toys. The toddler was laying on his tummy, sucking on a light blue pacifier while he played with a puzzle. His stuffed bee, never far away when he was little, was balancing on top of his head.
Dave looked away from his toddler for just a second to flip the page in the book he was pretending to read. When he looked back up, Aaron was inches away from his face, standing on his knees. Honey was still on top of his head.
“Well, hello, bambino,” Dave chuckled. “Can I do something for you?”
“Hungry,” Aaron said, muffled around his paci.
“Yeah?” Dave checked the time. “I suppose it is getting close to lunch time. What would you like to eat?”
“Picnic.”
“You wanna have a picnic, huh? How about a picnic in the backyard? Does that sound good?”
Aaron nodded once, causing his bee to finally fall off his head. He stared at it for a moment, before grabbing her by one of her wings. “Need blankets. I find.”
“Okay, piccolo. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”
Dave smiled as he watched Aaron toddle off to go find blankets.
Before too long, the two were outside in the backyard. Dave set up the blankets while Aaron held the picnic basket and supervised.
Rossi started to unpack the picnic basket, expecting Aaron to flop onto the blanket.
“Where are you going, ragazzino?” He asked as Aaron started to walk off with Honey.
“Honey lunch.” Aaron pointed towards the flowers.
“Oh, right. She needs nectar from the flowers, huh? Okay, you can go pick three flowers for her lunch.” Dave grinned. Aaron was adorable.
Rossi took a picture of Aaron, feeding himself his sandwich while holding a lily up to his bee. He was sure Garcia would appreciate the picture.
Unsurprisingly, shortly after finishing lunch and running around with his toys, Aaron got sleepy. He curled up on the blanket next to his caregiver and rested his head against the older man’s knee.
“Read?”
“Of course.” Dave set aside his own book and instead picked up one of Aaron’s toddler books.
“Corduroy is a bear who once lived in the toy department of a big store…”
Aaron was fast asleep by the time Dave finished reading.