Title: Aint No Clark Kent
Summary: After a particularly gruelling case, Emily feels like she's had enough. A chance conversation with the team cheer her up a little bit. Strong hint of H/P and BAU friendship all over the place.
Genre: Romance/Humor
Rating: K
Pairing: Hotch/Emily
Inspiration: Kalabangsilver's crazy
Emily didn't know why she let people surprise her anymore. She didn't blame God, herself or even the unsubs for the evil and suffering she saw every single day though - Emily could easily accept that evil was part of the world. That wasn't what really hit her and struck her down.
"Humans, by default, are liars, aren't they?" She asked the full yet silent bullpen. The whole team, save for Hotch, was gathered in the bullpen, fulfilling the daunting task of paperwork, which they all know had to be done, but always absolutely despised doing. Tired, hot and bothered, they had come straight from the jet to the office, and were silent in their thoughts while they all remembered the actions of the days before, the only sound before Emily's question being the scratching of pen on paper. Glances were traded at Emily's words, and JJ avoided her eyes, herself knowing the answer to the question, but not wanting to voice it.
"We caught the Unsub, thanks to you, Emily." Rossi said finally, and kindly, using this new conversation as an excuse to set down his pen, flexing his hands as the tired joints protested. "Your catch was the one that everyone else missed. We wouldn't have found the children in time if you hadn't found the Unsub's tell." He was trying to tell her that they had won this one - evil nil, BAU one.
Emily shook her head, unwilling to accept his reassurance. "Then why do I feel like we lost?" She shot back, and no one had the heart to immediately reply, merely looking down to their papers and pens morosely. Garcia, who was helping them gather technical information for court - and was only really there for emotional support - stopped typing, but stared at the same spot on the laptop screen for a few minutes, clearly deep in thought. "Why do I feel like we could have done more?"
"We're not superheroes." Garcia said suddenly, surprising everyone around her. "We're just mortal, just like the victims, and the victims' families, and even the Unsubs. We don't have special powers and we can't change what's already happened." Emily stared at her, mouth slightly ajar by the un-Garcia-like statement. She had taken everyone by surprise.
"You know," Reid piped up, "By definition, a superhero is just an individual with secretly extraordinary or super-human powers, who is dedicated to protecting the public. We may not be able to actually read minds, but we can read minute facial indications about what a person is thinking, and we do read behaviour. Most people who couldn't do that might believe that was a super-human power." That happy Garcia smile came back, and the tension and gloom which they inexplicably felt lifted slightly from its place on their shoulders. "We are also dedicated to protecting the public, so really, we're all superheroes." Reid smiled, and the team found their lips curving upwards too, all comforted by the unexpected though simultaneously predictable statement from their resident genius.
"Well I don't know about you kid, but I don't feel like no Clark Kent." Morgan sighed, though he appeared a great deal more relaxed than his former self, though still exhausted, like the rest of his team. Reid screwed up his face, and everyone sensed an argument or 'debate' rapidly approaching.
"Actually, Clark Kent wasn't actually a superhero, his alterego, Superman, was a superhero. Clark Kent was ordinary in all senses of the word. He went to a solid job, who went into his office everyday without fail, and he was polite and unexceptional and he even looked unexceptional. He wore a suit, and a tie, like anyone else, although he kept mostly to himself. He also had a love interest in the form of Lois Lane-"
"Okay, okay kid." Morgan laughed, interrupting his friend from reciting whatever he was reciting from - probably verbatim - as JJ leaned over to ruffle Reid's long dark hair, fondly. She'd always had a soft spot for the young genius. "You've made your point."
The team settled down, and even Emily seemed almost content with the humorous turn of the conversation, but their resident technical analyst slid over next to Red, in the computer chair she had made Morgan drag from her lair along the hall. There was a mischievous glint in her eye, and the mysterious grin on her lips showed them that she too was feeling more like her usual bubbly self.
"My beauty, I believe that you just described the bossman." Reid, while slightly confused about being called Garcia's 'beauty', was puzzled further. She winked, while Rossi and JJ laughed at what she was implying and the manner in which she was implying it.
"I was actually describing Clark Kent."
"Think about it," Garcia bubbled, spinning in her chair while staring at the ceiling with a smile plastered on her face. "Hotch could so be a secret superhero."
"Superheroes are, by definition, secret, so that distinction was unnecessary."
Garcia flourished her colourful pen at her colleague, grin widening as she pondered the thought further.
"Sweet Ghandi, now it all makes sense! The secrecy, the mystery, the hair..."
The entire team, save for Reid, simultaneously looked up to Hotch's office, where they could see him, looking over files on his desk. What he was doing didn't look any more exciting than what they were doing. Garcia winked across at Emily, who looked suspicious.
"What?" She asked the colourful blonde.
"I'd bet you're thinking about that lycra suit that we don't know about, locked away somewhere."
Morgan groaned, flattening the palms of his hands to his smooth head. "That was so far beyond everything that I never wanted to know about my boss." Garcia smiled sweetly.
"I'm sure that you have some spandex hotpants at home, my stud muffin."
"Only for your eyes, Baby Girl."
"Yeah, Morgan could be the sidekick." JJ cut into their incessant flirting, knowing from experience that she wasn't actually interrupting anything. "You could wear lycra too." All the girls laughed as Morgan winked at them and stretched purposefully flexing his large muscles.
Nearby, Rossi's horrified thoughts were making him shudder.
"I don't know why you're laughing. I have a very visual imagination, and all that I can see right now is Morgan and Hotch in spandex. I have known Aaron Hotchner for so long that it is like seeing one of my relatives in spandex." The girls merely laughed harder, and Morgan also had to work hard to contain his mirth. Reid, on the other hand, was frowning, his forehead crinkled as he lay deep in thought.
"In most fictional stories where the characters have superhuman powers, the main character is someone that you would least expect though. Like a so called geek or nerd, with hidden talent who is teased constantly for his inadequacies, making dramatic irony when he is more capable at most tasks than the teasers." The team stared at him, and Rossi shook his head.
"Do you want us to imagine you in spandex?"
"Yeah, Hotch seems like the type, Reid, but you really don't." Emily laughed. "Sorry." She added, as he looked a little put out.
"Why exactly does Hotch seem like the type though?" Morgan asked Emily, having completely abandoned all thought of paperwork and was leaning back in his seat casually. Little did Emily know that he was setting a trap for her. Garcia, despite being the non-profiler, caught onto his evil plan immediately. "Is it just because he wears a suit and says please and thank-you?"
"No," Emily began, perhaps involving herself more into the conversation than she should have. "Because he's mysterious, dark and handsome and he's much more likely to be a superhero than Reid." Reid frowned in protest, but there was a dawning smile dominating Morgan's features.
"Tall, dark and handsome, is he Emily?" The brief, all too readable 'mother balls' expression flashed across Emily's face, as she realised, a little too late, what she had said, and to whom. Denying would do no use here.
"I said mysterious." She corrected, hoping that would fend off the hungry profilers. "Not tall." Garcia rubbed her hands together with glee, delighted that she had unearthed something akin to gossip. Morgan, on the other hand, just found Emily's slip-up funny.
"Oh but he is tall." JJ added, trying to get a rise out of her colleague. She may not be a certified profiler, but she had worked with and observed those who were for long enough to know the ropes. And pull the obvious ones. "He's very tall, Emily."
"Do I remember you telling me that you like tall men, Emily?"
"Garcia!"
"Do I see a blush?" Teased Morgan as he did indeed puck up on a slight flush to her cheeks, which was mostly just aftermath from imagining Hotch in lycra. Rossi was the only agent not laughing, though he did have a slight smile turning his lips which showed that he was enjoying the entire affair immensely.
"You are twisting my words, Morgan, I never said that." Emily hissed through gritted teeth.
"Oh so you don't think that Hotch is tall, dark and handsome?" Even Reid contributed, having finally realised what was going on around him. JJ giggled uncontrollably into Rossi's shoulder nearby, as his own smile widened.
"I said mysterious!"
"Then you do think that he's mysterious, dark and handsome."
"Yes- no!" Emily mouthed, trying to articulate an answer while her team-mates laughed at her, some into their hands and some openly. She could feel her cheeks burning. Oh God. She had vowed that she would keep her little, almost teenage crush on Hotch under wraps, but clearly, the team had a different idea. Just as long as they wouldn't let Hotch know. That would perhaps be too embarrassing to bear.
"Prentiss?" The low, smooth tones which she knew - and enjoyed - well cut through their hilarity, and the team glanced up, automatically guilty, to where Hotch stood, half in and half out of his office. His expression was, like always, unreadable, and Emily cursed herself, wondering how much of the before conversation he had heard.
"Yes?" She asked, relieved by the break in her discomfort, though simultaneously provided with more. JJ winked at her, and dissolved into a series of quiet snorts which she muffled with Rossi's shoulder. Rossi himself seemed stoic, perhaps unusually so. But, after knowing him for a good three years now, Emily knew that he was in stitches inside.
Hotch looked around at his team suspiciously, clearly wondering why they were all laughing, and why Emily's face was the colour of his favourite tie. Not that he was complaining. He would never admit to her, but he thought that it looked kind of cute when she blushed.
"I just need you to review something that you put in my in-box." While desperately wondering what was making JJ so hysterical, Hotch kept the same, solidly unreadable expression on his face that he knew even Dave couldn't' analyse, and looked directly at Emily. It merely intrigued him further when he realised that his intense stare was only making her more uncomfortable. So this had something to do with him...
Emily nodded, and hurried up the stairs, and brushed past him into the office. Catching the all too familiar and comforting scent of his shower gel, she faltered in her step subconsciously, and he stared at her, oddly, before closing the door after her.
"What exactly do you need?" Emily asked again, forcing all of the very pleasant images of Hotch wearing lycra to the back of her mind. She would return to them later. "I thought I'd signed all of the reports I handed you."
"You forgot the second last page. You always do that." He hadn't let the second bit slip out, because it sounded far too fond. He even said it with a tiny smile, but by the time she had looked up from where she was looking at his desk, the smile was gone. Adopting instead a very severe expression, he rounded the back of his desk and sat down, turning the report on the table around and handing her a pen.
She allowed their fingers to graze, but not allowing herself to dwell on it. She was Emily Prentiss. No matter how good he looked in that suit, she wouldn't jump him because she was a professional. Plus, the blinds to his office were still open, and out of the corner of her eye she noticed the entire team watching them, still grinning like idiots. Fighting the urge to roll her eyes, she leaned down on the desk and signed the report, cursing herself for leaving it out. She always forgot the second last page.
"Sorry, I thought that I'd completed it on the plane back, but I was... distracted." Passing his pen back to him, she felt almost disappointed as their fingers did not make any more contact. His forehead was crinkled, in a mixture of... hell, she was a profiler and she could not understand what he was feeling.
"You did all that you could today, Prentiss." When he spoke, his voice was so soft it surprised even him. Though it shouldn't, because he knew that when it came to her, he always spoke softer. "You always do what you can to help people." Emily smiled and nodded, but it didn't take a profiler to guess that she wasn't convinced.
"I just..." She blurted, and he looked back up expectantly, from where he was readying himself for more paperwork. Emily sighed. She wouldn't burden him with what she was feeling. It had been a long week for all of them, and the lack of sleep was probably getting to him as well.
"Talk to me." Yes, the lack of sleep was definitely getting to him.
"Sorry, Hotch. I'll go finish the rest of my papers - I'm nearly done." Hurrying to the door, she stopped automatically when he told her to. Past the fact that he was her boss, there was something about his voice which just got through to her. Like he had a microphone in a crowded room, cutting through all of the white noise and just speaking to her. No one else, just her. It made her feel... special.
"Talk to me, Emily." The use of her given name made her turn around, and she slowly crept back across his office, and sat down in the chair in front of his desk. Still unsure of exactly what he wanted her to say, and vaguely what she was feeling.
"I guess that I just don't believe that I did all that I could. I know it's naive to think that the world has some honest, righteous people left. People who don't lie."
"Everybody lies. We lie, we just do it with good intentions."
"Well you know what they say about the road to hell." Emily snorted, and Hotch had to cock his head to the side, in an attempt to see into her down turned face.
"You did amazingly." The strength and shocking intimacy of his tone surprised her, so much so that her head snapped up. "Go home, you can finish the paperwork in the morning. Tell the others to get some rest too."
"Only if you go home too." He raised an eyebrow, as if she was defying him. Which, in a way, she was.
"I need to finish up here." Hotch argued, and normally she would have left it, but for some reason tonight she persisted.
"You're not Superman." She assured him, remembering her earlier conversation, and trying not to laugh too loud. "You need sleep too."
"I'll finish tomorrow, I guess." He conceded, knowing that what she was saying was right. He needed to go home tonight and see Jack. To remind himself that there was still reason to smile in the world.
With a smile which positively lit up the room, Emily strolled to the door, looking a whole lot like a terrible weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and Hotch watched as she went, her hair bobbing down the stairs as her step became more lively.
He almost smiled.
Down on the lower level, the team tried to keep silent as Emily returned, looking a whole lot happier than when she had gone up. Morgan grinned, before he could help himself.
"Why so happy, Emily?" He asked, cockily, as she sat back down at her desk, beginning to clear up her paperwork to head out for the night. "Did Superman show you his cape?"
With reflex born from five years of the FBI and three expressos, Emily threw her pen at him.
FINI