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Penelope loved you. She really, truly did. You made each other’s lives more interesting, and even if you could get a little loud in your appreciation of the human form sometimes, she just knew that your coming to work at the BAU would be the best thing to happen in a while. She couldn’t wait to introduce you to the rest of the team.
You’d already met Morgan before through her, but when you did walk off the elevator for the first time, you didn’t keep back your joking comment shot towards him, “Still as fine as ever, I see, Derek.”
Derek chuckles, shaking your offered hand with a wink, “Honey, you’ve gotta’ keep that flirtatious mouth of yours in check, at least for Reid’s sake.” Speak of the devil, Reid meanders over to where your group was formed, having heard his name.
“What was that about me?” he asks innocently enough, waiting a beat before offering his hand for an introduction, “I’m Doctor Spencer Reid. You must be the agent we were expecting. (Y/N)? Looking forward to working with you.”
“This is Doctor Reid?” you ask Penelope with a wide grin, adoring the way he fit Penelope’s description to a T, aside from one part, “Why didn’t you tell me before, P? If I’d known the BAU was filled with studs like this, I’d have transferred a long time ago!” Reid blushes almost instantly, a stunned look coming to his face as he opens his mouth to speak before closing it again as a smile finds its way uncertainly to his face.
Penelope snorts as she pats Reid’s shoulder, “Aw, (Y/N), don’t tease him like that!”
“T-Thank you?” Reid manages, blush still coating his cheeks and making Derek’s eyes twinkle with mirth as Prentiss comes over with J.J. not far behind.
“Looks like you’re already getting acquainted,” J.J. begins, giving a welcoming smile to you as she introduces herself.
Emily motions to a desk across the bullpen, “Here, let me show you to your desk.”
You barely have enough time to settle in before you’re all being called to the round table, via Rossi, who was just as friendly as the rest of them. Penelope takes you arm-in-arm as you follow behind the rest of the team.
“How are you liking it so far?” she grins, giving you a squeeze and not enough time to respond before she continues, “This is the rough part, though— seeing all the gross stuff some freak has cooked up.”
You chuckle, unsurprised that Garcia didn’t like seeing the morbid things the BAU dealt with, “I think I’ll be able to hold my breakfast, sugar—”
You’re cut off as you enter the room, coming face-to-face with a taller man who makes your breath catch for just a moment. Almost long enough that you don’t realize he’s adjusted the files he was carrying into one hand just to offer his other to you.
You manage to take it as Penelope releases your arm, her curious eyes staying on you as he introduces himself, “Agent (Y/N), though I approved your transfer, we haven’t had the chance to properly meet. I’m SSA Aaron Hotchner, your new Unit Chief. I trust you’ve met the rest of the team?”
“Um, yeah— yes, sir, I have. It’s good to meet you finally,” he gives you a nod and you quickly find a seat, beating Penelope in your haste. She sits beside you, still giving you a peculiar look after the exchange between you and Hotch. You didn’t shoot her a look so she could read your first impression of Hotch, like you usually would have, instead remaining serious for the rest of the meeting.
A week had passed like that, with you in power-mode, as she’d come to label it. Though you still had lighthearted banter between her and Morgan, she noticed you weren’t as joking as usual. At first, she’d chalked it up to you wanting to do well on your first case at the BAU, but when you returned from finishing the case and still had no sign of reverting back to your usual behavior, she knew something was off.
“Spill it,” Penelope begins as you lounge in the office chair beside her, eating your lunch out of the Chinese takeout container it had arrived in. Your surprised, confused look prompts her to tap your knee with her index and middle finger, gently demanding an explanation, “You’ve been acting funny ever since you got sent on your first case. Don’t try to deny it! I’m your best friend and I can tell!”
“I’m not acting funny!” you reply defensively, but Penelope catches the dark blush that begins to coat your face once you take an overly large chopstick-full of noodles.
“Ohh! You totally are!” she begins, leaning in as she studies you for a second, “What happened to the girl who flirted with poor Spencer on the first day just to see him blush? You haven’t been acting the same! Don’t you dare tell me you met someone and didn’t tell me about it!”
“I would never,” you assure her, taking a breath as you prepare to confess why you’d been more reserved over the last week. “Are you really not aware of how absolutely sexy your boss is, P?”
“If you mean my baby boy, Derek Morgan, then yes, I’m completely aware of it,” Garcia chuckles, making you shake your head as a smile cracks on your face, too.
“Well, yes, Morgan is fine as hell, too, but I’m talking about Agent Hotchner! Talk about catching me off-guard!”
“No way! Hotch?” Garcia cackles at the news, “You’ve got the hots for Hotch? That’s amazing.”
You let out a chuckle as you reply, neither of you realizing how loud you were becoming with the door to her office cracked open, “Well, you can’t spell ‘Hotchner’ without ‘hot’ am I right?”
“Keep it in your pants, girl—” she spins her chair away from her monitors to face you as she snorts, only for her laughter to come to an abrupt halt as she focuses on something beyond where you sat. “Sir, we were just—”
You spin in the chair as if you’d been shot, eyes wide like a deer in the headlights as you realize your mistake. Hotchner, the man you’d been dwelling on for the last week, stood there, eyeing you as his own faint blush appeared on his face. He quickly addresses Penelope, rather than you.
“Garcia, team meeting in five minutes.”
“Y-Yes, sir,” you’re the one to respond, two seconds lapsing after he goes out of view of the door before Penelope loses it all over again.
She gasps, gripping her chest, “Ohmygod, (Y/N)! Oh my—!”
No matter how red your face was, or how embarrassed you were at him having overheard your conversation, nothing could stop the gut-wrenching laughter that came from the two of you as you struggled to catch your breath for those next four minutes before the meeting was to start.