Hotch grows up with a gun in his hand.
His family's property has plenty of land- enough for a shooting range and no neighbors close enough to complain- and his father makes sure a gun is natural in his son's hands. Family vacations are spent target shooting; family time is spent on the range.
When he gets to the BAU, Hotch is the steady one, the one whose hands don't shake, the one who's quick on the trigger and never misses.
And yeah, Hotch doesn't miss. Maybe it was because his father clocked him one when he missed too much, or maybe it was growing up with a gun always a part of himself, or maybe it was that mile-wide streak of perfectionism he'd both had beaten into him and beaten into himself.
He doesn't ask why. He just knows his guns like his own breathing.
Reid is the smart one, the genius one, the one whose mind is a mystery, the one who's never come across a situation he doesn't have information about.
Hotch is the one who teaches Reid how to shoot properly, when the kid's new and scrawny and has never held a gun before.
"How are you so good at this?" Reid demands, shoving his hair out of his face with a frustrated hand. "How do you never miss?"
"I do what the FBI tells me to and I follow through."
"Well, yeah, but-"
"That's all you gotta do, Reid. That's the only part you're missing"
The kid huffs. "You make it look so natural, though. Like- like it's a part of you."
Hotch thinks of days spent shooting beer cans off stumps and fence posts, of hours with targets in his sights as his shoulders and wrists ached from the weight and recoil of his guns, of his father a few feet away. He thinks of desperation that tasted like blood and gunpowder.
"I practiced a lot growing up," Hotch says after what he hopes is a barely noticeable pause. "Doesn't mean you can't be just as good."
Reid's face twitches, but he raises his gun towards the target across the range.
Hotch watches, and he remembers, and Reid's bullet hit home.