spitfire

𝐜 𝐡 𝐚 𝐩 𝐭 𝐞 𝐫 𝟏 𝟒

When Spencer woke up and the first thing he smelt was cherries and fresh coffee, he thought he had died and gone to heaven. He looked around and his senses slowly came back to him, he had slept at Nova's apartment the night before.

His eyes swept over the room keenly. The light was warm and yellow, and it filtered in through the room in rows as the blinds blocked their way through the window. The air was light and Spencer couldn't shake the feeling of absolute bliss, it was the best sleep he had in a while.

He frowned when he realized Nova wasn't next to him. He stumbled out of the bed, almost tripping over the fluffy brown carpet as he went. "Nova?" he asked quietly, leaving the room.

When Nova looked up to see Spencer waddling into the room with his hair a complete mess on his head she cackled out a laugh and resisted the urge to tie it up into a tiny bun. "Hey, Spence. Coffee?" she asked softly as she pushed a cream-filled sugary mug of coffee over the kitchen counter towards him. He smiled sleepily at her and snatched it, downing half the mug in one go.

He looked around and realized he had left his phone somewhere and didn't know where it was. "Uh, where's my-"

"It's charging on my bedside table."

"Oh, thanks! And my ba-"

"It's hanging on the door already, Darlin."

He didn't even have time to register to look for his bag, as soon as she called him darling he blushed bright red and his mind went completely blank. "W- uh- m- thanks." He stuttered before grabbing his phone and his bag, seeing that they had a case. It was still early, only about 6 in the morning.

Once he had gotten all of his stuff together, he sat at one of the stools in the kitchen, watching Nova run around the room making food. "We have to go in today. There's a case in Quantico, a string of kidnappings." Spencer said quietly, unashamedly staring at Nova. There was a prominent furrow between his brows. Nova swiveled around from her chopping board and walked over to spencer, standing between his legs. He looked up at her and she smiled, running her thumb over the frown between his eyebrows. The frown immediately disappeared, being replaced with a calm expression.

"We'll go in today then, tomorrow is off for all of us, we can do something then." She said as she took one of his hands, tracing the lines on his palm. He watched her with an adoring expression, wondering if he was still asleep. "You know, my mother used to trace this line on my palm here," she said to Spencer softly, tracing over the prominent line running through the center of his hand. "She said that the deeper the lines run through your palm, the more stable that part of you is. Every night before I went to sleep, she traced my love line, right here. She used to say that my heart was strong, that I could get through anything. I think that stayed with me when she passed." Nova said quietly. Her voice sounded far away, but not sad. She never sounded sad when she talked about her mom, only respectful, and filled with admiration.

Spencer locked his fingers around hers and kissed her hand, smiling at her. He realized she may have talked a lot, but she never told anyone much about herself. The fact that she would share something with him like that made his heart melt and re-form just for her.

She suddenly smiled playfully at him and dragged him off the seat toward the dining table. "Here, we've got an hour before we have to leave and I'm planning on stuffing my face with pancakes before investigating a string of kidnappings," she said ironically, putting a large stack of pancakes before him.

Penelope hadn't gotten a text from her last night about the date, and that made her suspicious. When she and Spencer walked into the BAU together with coffee from the same store, she got even more suspicious. Nobody else thought much of it, but Penelope could see clear as day that there was something going on.

"Alright, here are the files, 3 victims so far, all taken within a week of each other, all dumped in different recycling bins around the city," she said, passing out the files to everyone and pulling up pictures of the victims and the crime scenes.

"Hm. Recycling bins, the bodies are all dumped carelessly, he obviously doesn't show respect or remorse for his victims. Any similarities between them?" Nova asked Garcia, tapping the tip of her pen against her lips distractedly.

"Just their jobs. They're all strippers, but they belong to different clubs in the city, we tried to find a list of common names between the clubs, but I guess it's more than just a serial killer that visits them often." Penelope said, laughing nervously towards the end.

Nova sighed and walked towards the round table, leaning both hands on the table as she frowned and flipped through the files. The team was chatting about theories on the unsub and Nova felt a hot breath behind her and a warm body towering over her. When she smelled coffee and new books, she smiled. She felt spencer lay one loose hand around her waist, the other hand lying on the table next to her as he looked at the file over her shoulder.

Tingles shot up her spine and she fought back a smile, her body immediately relaxing next to him. She flipped the page over and was looking over the pictures when she froze, hearing a gasp.

Spencer and Nova both looked up at the same time to see Penelope with a gaped mouth and wide eyes, pointing between them with an exaggerated gasp. Nova's eyes widened as she brought her hand up to her neck and swiped in a "cut-it-out" motion. JJ and Emily also turned around and their eyes widened.

"oops," Spencer said from behind her, his face blushing bright pink. Nova grabbed her hand from around her waist and held it loosely, telling him silently that it was okay. Once Derek and Rossi turned around to notice the situation, Derek immediately opened his mouth to let out a loud "whoop". Rossi expected this and covered Derek's mouth with his hand so that the noise was muffled.

Nova looked around and saw that Aaron wasn't there, he must be on the phone with the jet guy, getting the plane ready. "We can talk about this later, yeah? No one mentions this to Hotch." Nova said threateningly, her eyes narrowing at the group. "Secret office romance, something I can finally relate to around you children," Rossi murmured as he turned around and walked away from them, unbothered.

Penelope was bursting at the seams with happiness. She was practically skipping as she nodded and zipped her mouth with her hand and pranced away. JJ and Emily were feeling a bit sympathetic for the two. They knew how it felt to be nervous to tell Hotch about a relationship between two BAU employees. When they first got together, it took Hotch over two weeks to realize that their relationship wouldn't jeopardize either of their performances on the job.

JJ smiled at them and took Emily's hand, leaving just Spencer and Nova. Nova turned around at Spencer to look at him with a raised eyebrow and a playful glare. He grimaced slightly, and whispered a "sorry."

Nova snorted and grabbed his face with both hands, smushing his cheeks together and pecking him on the lips softly before dragging him out of the conference room they were in.

And if Aaron happened to walk by the window of the conference room and see Nova laughing at his bright red face, giving Spencer an innocent kiss, he didn't say anything. He just contained the tiniest of proud smiles and walked back out toward the jet.