Sorry this took so long, I've kind of had a bit of a block, any suggestions would be appreciated
/WARNINGS:
Contains the R slur
I'm not trying to rank one form of bullying over another, this is just from my own experience
All his life, Spencer had been singled out. He'd been pushed, shoved, kicked, punched, but what always stuck the most were the comments. Drawback of an eidetic memory.
"Freak"
"Retard"
"Psycho"
"Nobody will ever want you around, so do everybody a favour"
What people don't realise, is that although he might be a little different, he can still hear. He can still understand what people are saying, you don't tend to graduate high school at 12 without having a pretty good grasp of language.
The other thing people don't seem to get, is that the words last far longer than the bruises. Of course the physical abuse from his classmates took a toll, he still flinches when he can't quite tell what someone's thinking, on the off chance they're thinking 'you know what? I'm gonna punch this guy" but the words are what rang through his head every time someone rolled their eyes at him, every time someone told him he talked too much or he should just 'keep his darn hands still', every time he heard a grown adult, even a police officer, say one of those same things the kids in school would say. When he first joined, he got it quite a lot. "We got 3 dead girls, and you brought some retarded kid?" "How can he be a profiler? He probably doesn't even know where he is!" "Is he here on some kind of inclusion quota or something?" Of course these were not often said directly to him, usually, they didn't even know he could hear. They were usually said to Hotch, Gideon, Morgan, occasionally even JJ. But what always stood out to Spencer, was that for once, someone was standing up for him.
"If you want the help of my team, then show some respect, you want my team, you want Reid"
"Dr Reid, is the smartest person in this room, don't question his ability just because he doesn't want to shake your hand"
"You wanna keep your job? You better shut your damn mouth then!"
"That's funny, he predicted you'd be a moron'
It made Spencer feel good. He'd never had anyone defend him before.
After he told Morgan about the goal post incident, he thought a lot about what people had done to him. That, in part, is what lead to him calling Derek at 3:24am.
"Hello?"
"Morgan"
"Kid, what up? We got a case?"
"No, sorry, I shouldn't have called, I'll let you sleep"
"No, kid wait, I know you well enough to know you're not going to sleep until you got this out of your system, so come on, what's going on?"
Spencer paused
"Kid? What is it? You got a girl round or something?" Derek said teasingly
"No, no nothing like that, it's just, remember what I said earlier, about the high school thing, you're not going to tell anyone, right?"
"Of course not, you know I wouldn't do that"
"I know, it's just, I don't want people to think even worse of me"
"Pretty boy, believe me, no one on our team think anything bad of you, and you know we'll always be there to back you up if you ever get the confidence to stand up for yourself"
"Thanks Morgan"
"No problem, now get some sleep"
After that, Spencer tried to do just that. It started small, when an officer called him a freak, he made a point of looking up at him, just so he knew he'd heard. He started to take back the insults, saying 'thanks' when called a freak because, why the hell would he want to be like that guy? His personal favourite, when someone called him a retard and he said "my IQ is significantly higher than 70, and I suspect, significantly higher than yours".
It wasn't easy, that's for sure, but he could feel his confidence build every time, and the clap on the back from Derek, the tiny smile from Hotch, the grins from JJ, that made it all worth it.