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“Be careful.”
He’s heard the words a hundred times in his life, and Spencer guesses it comes from his aptitude to bite off more than he can chew in every situation he’s in, but it doesn’t mean it’s not nice to hear from Morgan once in a while.
“I’m always careful,” he responds smartly, patting himself on the back for the joke, making Morgan chuckle softly and shake his head, gun still drawn and posture still tense, but a very faint trace of a smile on his face.
“Yeah, kid, your medical records say otherwise.”
“Stay out of my medical records.”
“I was there for half of them—”
“Cover me,” he interrupts instead of letting the comment finish. “I’ll be out soon.”
“Say the word, Spencer,” Hotch says from the other side of the doorway. The unsub is one solid oak door away, and here is joking with Morgan. A psychotic man with half a dozen hostages and nothing to lose stands feet away, while Spencer’s about to enter the room with him with nothing but a holstered gun and what confidence he can muster.
This surely won’t go wrong.
“Leland Rowe,” he yells before putting his hand on the doorknob. “It’s Doctor Reid, we talked on the phone.”
He doesn’t get to turn the doorknob, as the unsub does it himself. Leland. Leland Rowe, he’s not an unsub anymore, he’s a sick, power hungry genius. He’s a man currently holding a hostage in front of his body, arm stuck out enough to point a gun at his face. “Shut the door.”
Spencer knows well enough to do as he’s told by anyone holding a gun. “Okay.”
“Vest off.” Morgan’s in his ear, quite literally, yelling, Not a chance, Reid, but he does it anyway. The vest is thrown to the side. “Gun on the ground.” He doesn’t like the thought any more than taking the vest off, but he does it anyway. “Unbutton your shirt.”
Huh?
Oh. Oh, he’s looking for wires. The earbud lodged in his ear is nearly invisible, and completely wireless, so he feels fine (well, fine enough) doing as he’s told. “No wire. We’re alone, Leland.”
“Have they met my demands?”
Of course, the demands. Classic. Twenty thousand in cash and a lithium ion bomb, not exactly classic requests, and certainly not ones he’ll be granted. “No, not yet. They’re working on it.”
“I don’t have all day, you know—”
Time to start tweaking nerves and see what works. “Yeah, well neither do any of us, Rowe.”
“Oh, you’re inconvenienced by me?” he mocks, the woman in his arms thrown to the side, finally. The gun is still clutched dangerously in his hands, safety off. “So sorry to interfere with your day, doctor.”
“Yeah, some of us have more important things to be doing,” Spencer scoffs. He needs superiority, the best he can do right now is take that away from him. “I tried to tell you on the phone, a lithium ion bomb, really? A weaponized battery? Sure, it’s toxic, but what’s it gonna do, start a few fires?”
“A lithium ion bomb will—”
“Yeah, yeah, you have your agendas. Never said they were good. ”
“Shut up!” Rowe yells, still waving the gun around. “Shut up, you idiot! I know what I’m doing!”
“Sure you do,” he replies, rolling his eyes. “You could have asked for anything in the world and you wanted twenty thousand and a bomb? Just admit you don’t know what you’re—”
“I know what I’m doing!” The gun is still shakily held in his hand, but not pointed at anything. His energy is on winning the argument—good. Spencer takes a small step closer while he has the chance, another. If he lunged for it he could reach the gun, but it’d be risky. He needs another yard. “Do you even understand the sort of things I’m capable of? I took over this entire building, and—and I have hostages! I made a pressure release bomb in an hour, man! An hour!”
He gets a few feet more. Okay. He needs to go now. “And all that wasted,” he says, landing the final blow.
The man is about to wave his gun closer, but not before Spencer pounces, wrestling for it. It goes off into the air, deafening him for a brief moment. The gun is finally in his hands.
“Hands where I can see them,” he demands. The man is still stuck in his own anger. Panting, debating his next move; Spencer doesn’t let him. “ Now! ”
The team is already barging in, four more guns pointed at his head seemingly enough to convince the man to do as he’s told. Okay. Okay, Spencer has the man’s gun in his hands. He flips the safety on, glancing around for his own gun dropped to the ground minutes before. He spots it a few feet away, deciding the man’s plenty taken care of and he’d rather his gun back in its holster.
“—Reid, stop, Spencer! ”
“What!” he tosses back, the noise of the arrest and the hostages enough on his already grated ears. He wants his gun in his holster and a ride home to take a shower.
Hotch is in front of him, now, upon turning around. “Let me see your shoulder.”
“What about my—” He gulps back what could have easily been his breakfast all over the floor. “Oh.”
Blood drenches the fabric of his shirt, a fake cashmere one the lady at the thrift store said looked good on him when he’d bought it. A tear, small, really, is right at the peak of his shoulder where the blood originates, and Spencer is suddenly realizing that the shot fired didn’t just get the ceiling tiles. It’s starting to sting.
“Sit down, ambulance is on its way.”
“I don’t—” He sits anyway.
“They’re gonna clean and bandage the wound, Spencer, you don’t have to go to the hospital unless you’re unconscious on the ground, okay?” He has a feeling that’s a lie, but it’s nice to think.
“Adrenaline really… Really messes with you, doesn’t it?”
Hotch chuckles, but there’s nothing humorous about it. “Yeah, it really does.” His gaze wanders back to the wound. “No, don’t look at it, look at me.”
“Why—” He bites down on his own tongue when Hotch puts pressure on the wound. “ Oh .” He bites back a swear because really? Sure, put pressure on the wound, keep him alive, but right now bleeding out doesn’t sound as bad as it should.
“Sorry, but I plan to keep you conscious.”
He redirects himself, tries to separate himself from the pain. “Everyone’s safe?”
“Everyone’s safe. Rowe is—” He glances behind him, where Spencer sees him being led out of the room. “On the way to the precinct, I’m guessing. All the hostages are safe.”
“He didn’t want to hurt them, you know, he had the safety off on his gun but he looked terrified to even be in the situation in the first place… Too smart to stop, too scared to commit.”
There’s something like pride on his face, but Spencer doesn’t really care to decipher it at the moment. “That’s why we’ve got you, kid.”
“‘M not much of a negotiator.”
“You know how to start a fight, though.”
A short laugh leaves his lips. “Yeah, guess so.”
He hears the sirens in the same moment Hotch does. “Hey, you’re not unconscious, good job.”
“It’s one of my least favorite sensations, I tend to avoid it.”
“You did good, Spencer,” and he has a feeling it’s not just about staying awake until the ambulance arrived.
Yeah, maybe he can let himself think that. Maybe he did do well.