To say Athena was a good house guest would be a gross-over exaggeration.
It surprisingly wasn't the constant murderous threats, endless theft and 2am song-filled showers than made Rossi send her to Emily's after less than a full week, although that didn't help, it turned out that tracking his daughter down no matter which team member she was sent to was one of Athena's father's strong suits; phone calls arriving at Emily's house after 3 days and Reid's after just one, leading to both her and her suitcase's breaking point.
"Right, that's enough" Athena exclaimed, storming into the briefing room with bags under her eyes where the group with equally as deep eye bags sat discussing where she would go next, "just give me a fucking gun and lock me in a hotel room- either I'll kill anyone who tries to break in or myself once I finish the mini bar and this will all be over."
"You know I can't do that Athena" Hotch sighed, rubbing his tired eyes subtly.
"Well you're going to have to eventually because now he knows where 3 of you guys live and the only other options are two of you who have literal kids and Morgan who I would end up killing after an hour, I'm not letting him hurt you guys- I mean hurt your kids and families or whatever..."
"We can handle it" Morgan rolled his eyes, "trust us, we've dealt with-"
"No you absolutely can't" she turned to him with a sharp interruption, "You cannot even imagine what he would do to you, you cannot imagine what you would... what you would go through so just give me a bloody gun and let me go."
"You are property of the federal government now, we can't let you go" Hotch snapped with trigged frustration, not realising until her confused expression that he wasn't supposed to let that slip.
"Property?" She tilted her head before the cogs turned and her eyes widened with a realisation, "oh my god! The FBI fucking brought me?! You brought me?! That is so fucking fucked up!"
"Just for legal reasons so the government couldn't send you back to prison or deport you, they had to buy your sentence from the prison system" Hotch tried to explain and calm her down to no avail.
"So what now? You're all my fucking owners like some shitty fan-fiction about a boy band?!"
"I don't know what half of those words mean but no we're not, but it means you are stuck with us so you we have to solve this problem together."
"It's not yours to solve!" She yelled up at him, matching his energy and silencing the room, "this isn't one of your cases that you can solve within a week to refill your self indulgent need to be a hero all the time! This is serious, this is my god damn life! If you try to interject, I promise you that you and everyone you love will be brutally murdered in ways you cannot even comprehend- not to mention the shit I'll have to go through that will be worse than that- so you will stay out of it, you will keep your god damn nose out of my business or I will make you, do you fucking understand me Aaron Hotchner?"
The room fell still waiting for his response as he stared her down, toe to toe in a battle of stubbornness and hidden secrets beyond what anyone knew.
No one expected Hotch to back down, no one expected Athena to let him without a snark; and yet, they both did.
"We've got a case, take your seat" he spoke simply, Athena doing so in an uncharacteristic silence whilst Garcia stared the presentation awkwardly.
"Looks like we're in the twilight zone" Rossi mumbled to Reid who watched Athena picking at her nails.
Athena had always prided herself on her nails during her tormenting-of-the-team days, always freshly manicured to mock them after a fight, but the truth was they weren't hers.
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Cruel - Criminal minds enemies to lovers
FanfictionHotch this is a bad idea" Reid said following him through the prison. "It's the only option we have left, we both know this" the stern man spoke as they approached the door. "We can't just let her out and join the team- it took the FBI 2 years to t...
