Pairing: Aaron Hotchner X Reader

pairing: aaron hotchner x reader

contents/warnings: single mom reader, bau!reader, brief mentions of typical cm violence, mutual pining, coworkers to lovers (no arc completion)

based off this post

You’ve been held at gunpoint. You’ve been beaten, battered, and bruised within an inch of your life. You’ve been threatened, harassed, and abused. Yet there’s no fear as debilitating as what you’re feeling now, when you look around the crowded room and can’t find your toddler anywhere. 

She knows not to run off. As much as you withhold from her about your career, her tiny ears unprepared for the horrors you face, you’ve told her a thousand different ways not to leave your side. And she’d been doing so good, her little pudgy fist clasped in the fabric of your dress until midway through your conversation with Emily. You’d reached down to feel her pigtails after she’d dropped your dress, content that she was still there even if she wasn’t holding onto you anymore. And yet, here you are, childless and panicking.

You start ducking into open rooms, figuring that she wouldn’t have shut the door after her if she was wandering into them. She’s nowhere to be seen, though, you don’t catch a glimpse of her black-ribboned hair or her blue-dotted dress.

Your shoes hit the scratchy carpet with urgency, and you feel many-a-head turning to face you. You don’t feel like explaining, though, not when your little girl is loose in a government building.

Government buildings are no place for children. Too many people have guns, and, though they won’t be turned upon her, she’s more than likely to be morbidly curious about one left lying around and end up worse than seriously injured. Or she could get into an elevator and lose herself among the maze of floors and desks. Or she could walk straight out the front door into traffic. Or she could lock herself in a bathroom stall. Or she could stumble upon photos she shouldn’t be seeing, crime scenes and corpses strewn about less child-friendly areas of the place.

Or, you find out, as you head for Hotch’s door, intent on pleading with the man’s parental instinct to aid you in your search, she could be dancing with your boss.

She could be on her tip-toes, ruffled socks bunched up around her ankles and mary-janes toeing Aaron’s sleek black work shoes. She could be stretched all the way to his waist, her arms hung above her head as she grips one of his thick fingers in all of her tiny ones. She could be grinning up at him, baby teeth on full display as her hair bounces to the beat of the song he’s making up. You’ve never heard him hum before, nor have you seen that fond of a glint in his eyes, but he’s beaming down at her, a happy little tune flitting through the air from his throat. He’s jutting one foot out after the other, tie swaying against his chest as he gives your daughter the dance of her, admittedly short, lifetime.

Neither of them have noticed you hovering just outside the crack in the door, and she looks down just in time for one of her shoes to slip from his own. Her weight goes with it, but he holds steady to her hands, pulling her upright until she can latch her foot onto his again.

“Woah!” She gushes, giggling with exhilaration. 

“Woah,” He parrots, “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” She nods, a slight lisp invading her words from her pacifier habits, “You’re strong, Uncle Aaron.”

“Well I have to be,” He muses, and though he’s no longer humming, the song lives on as he continues moving their feet in sync, “Just in case someone needs protecting.”

“I think mommy needs protecting sometimes,” Your daughter decides, and your cheeks grow hot at the mere mention of yourself, “She runned into my backpack yesterday and tripped!”

He doesn’t correct her poor grammar, nor does he point out that she was probably the one to put her backpack in a less-than-ideal place. All he does is raise his eyebrows amusedly, nodding at her statement.

“Well, maybe you could start protecting her.”

“How?” She stares up at him skeptically, unsure why the man is insinuating that a three year old can be so heroic.

“I think you should put your backpack somewhere where she won’t trip over it,” There it is, the parental voice of reason, “Maybe on a chair? Or the couch?”

“I think you should do it.” She blazes past his suggestion, typical for a child who doesn’t understand responsibility for their actions. He seems to notice the cliche as well, chuckling mirthfully, “Alright. If I see any backpacks on the floor, I’ll save her from them. Deal?”

“Deal.” She grins toothily, squealing as he lifts her straight into his arms from only his grip on her hands.

Her legs curl effortlessly around his waist and you worry about her shoes staining his shirt, but you’d seen a grape juice stain on his tie only days before, and you remember that your kid isn’t the only one crawling all over Aaron. You rush down the stairs when they begin heading for the door, posing as if you’d just began your ascent by the time they swing the hinges open.

“There you are,” You try acting relieved, though the panic you’d felt only moments prior is long gone, replaced by sticky-sweet adoration, “What, did Hotch lure you away with candy?”

“Just my natural charm,” He defends, squeezing her where she’s curled around his hip, “And a dance move or two.”

“A dance move,” Morgan repeats teasingly from the other end of the room, a few downcast smirks shot from the rest of your teammates, “I don’t recall you ever teaching me any of those, boss man.”

“You’re too big to stand on my toes.” Aaron laments with a goofy smile towards your daughter, who giggles at the thought of her big, strong Uncle Derek balancing on Hotch’s feet.

“Well if we don’t visit Auntie Penelope soon,” You accept the arm that your daughter throws out to you at the mention of her bubbly godmother, taking her from Hotch’s strong arms, “I’m going to be given a very long lecture, and you’ll be given one less cookie than usual.”

“Only five?” She gasps in real, palpable terror, fingers clenching in the fabric of your dress once more, “Let’s go!”

The bullpen shares a chuckle at her dramatics, and Reid steps aside from where he’s aiming to ask Hotch a question at the base of the stairs. You’re crossing your own desk, intent on ducking into Penelope’s lair for a chat, when Hotch’s voice rings out across the room, urgent and strong.

“Y/N!” He doesn’t often use your first name, and that’s what gets your attention the most. You turn towards him, bewildered and hesitant to take another step.

“Backpack,” He points down at the floor where you’re about to step blindly, a tinkerbell-themed bag discarded in the middle of the walkway. You eye your daughter rather unimpressed, but her attention is focused solely on Hotch, who’s already engaged with Reid.

“Pick it up,” You groan, holding your daughter’s waist and angling her towards the floor. She giggles jovially at the headrush she receives from being held nearly upside-down, and her little arms reach eagerly for her belongings.

Once she secures the backpack and deposits it on your desk rather than in your path, you tuck her back against your hip. She’s got her chin hooked over your shoulder, out of your eyesight, which means that you don’t catch the thumbs-up that she throws towards Hotch. You don’t happen to notice the wink that he throws her back while Reid’s head is ducked towards a paper he’d brought along, another one of his rare smiles aimed at her as he holds up his end of the bargain.