Chapter Text
Pretend, life is a game
Don't know the rules, don't mean a thing
He knows it’s obvious. It made up his entire being - of course he couldn’t hide it.
He knows people can tell from the moment they meet him. It only takes a few seconds for them to clock it, if not by name then by the definite fact that he’s not quite the same as them. He sees their eyes narrow as he speaks, watches as they exchange not-so-subtle glances with colleagues to try and confirm whether other people have noticed it too.
For Spencer, those first reactions decide a lot. It's a useful litmus test for him.
When he'd first met Gideon he'd seen his eyes focus in on him like a hawk, his brain ticking over, sizing up his potential. Hotch had been a contrast to his intensity, patient and neutral and non-plussed, smoothing over any of Spencer's peculiarities with ease.
As far as superiors went, Spencer knows he'd been lucky.
The rest of the team had passed as well. Garcia hadn't even blinked as he'd awkwardly refused a handshake, continuing to smile and joke and welcome him into the fold the same as she did the others. JJ and Elle too, although they'd been more polite and professional than most. He knew he'd confused Morgan at the start, but it hadn't deterred him. He'd always stayed enthusiastic, always willing to try and engage Spencer in break-room banter no matter how many times it fell flat.
Nervous though he'd been joining the Bureau, Spencer had known the team would be okay from those first few interactions.
Things had changed, over time. The team had indeed been okay, and then some. After two years with the BAU they'd taught him to be more unapologetic about it - that it was just how he was, and that he should be able to be himself, same as everyone else.
But it’s still there, and it's still difficult. It just has a different shape to it now.
Since he’s treated with respect for the most part, the moments where he's not hurt doubly so. It hurts when Gideon cuts him off with careless words, or when Morgan shares an exasperated look with JJ behind his back. The actions land like punches, an awful, debilitating reminder that he’s not the same as them, that he never would be. The raised eyebrows and hidden head shakes remind him that his acceptance here is ultimately due to their patience, and that he should be careful not to push it.
Each one of those instances makes him stumble, sends him down the familiar, sickening spiral of shame and embarrassment that he's so used to fighting. He spends the day struggling to get his words out, to keep the smile on his face at the right time, to keep the right words coming from his mouth.
It's the same feeling that's followed him all his life, in one way or another.
Even now, a trained agent with multiple PhDs, with friends who genuinely liked him, it still happens.
He’s gotten pretty good at field work. It’s all written clearly in training manuals, all the manoeuvres and tactical phrases and hand signals. It’s easy for him to learn, easy instructions for him to follow.
“His coordination drops off when he’s thinking.”
He always hears them, the little phrases.
He’s gotten better at info dumping. Every time someone cuts him off, be it the team or someone in his daily life, he goes over it. He analyses the event, assesses the context as to why it’d been inappropriate in that circumstance. He catalogues it, adds it to the list of rules he runs through to remind himself. He clamps down on it for a while, makes it a priority.
He tries to be more conversational.
He still slips up though. When he gets too excited, or when there are more stressors to cope with, when he’s already tired. When his body's buzzing with exhaustion his words will come quicker than his brain can stop them, and inevitably someone will cut him off, and shame will claw at his insides and he’ll lie awake into the early hours kicking himself for it. The cycle repeats.
It’s happened enough now that he knows it’s not a big deal to the team. They’re used to it, he guesses. They know what’s going on. But it’s still embarrassing in the moment, it still makes him feel like a school child again, punished for knowing the answer.
“Focus, please.”
Hotch is the best at it so far. Sometimes Spencer just needs some direction - he doesn’t mind it so much, when it’s framed like that.
Contrary to people’s assumptions, he doesn’t ramble off statistics to prove he’s smarter than other people. He’s just excited to know the information, readily assuming that others would want to know it too, that it would be helpful context for their cases.
Besides, he doesn’t even think he is smarter. He’s more knowledgeable, sure, and he's good at recognising patterns, but he’s no more intelligent than anyone else on the team.
Hotch and Gideon know how to handle cases in a way he never could, and Morgan knows how to charm people, how to be a good friend, how to get people to trust him. JJ knows how to negotiate with people in crisis, how to use the media to their advantage. Elle knows how to handle her fear, and Garcia can read technology in a way Spencer sees as genuine magic.
Spencer's smart, but he doesn’t know how to do any of that.
He’s gotten better at hiding bits of it away.
He doesn’t spin in his chairs anymore. He’ll rock them side to side sometimes, bounce against the backrest when his mind wanders. Never for long though, never as much as he wants to.
He wears his watch against his skin as much as he can. Too many people kept asking him about it when he didn’t. He learns how to keep up with people's jokes, how to parry Morgan's banter. He learns how to wait for his turn in briefings, how to hold his tongue when delivering profiles.
Sometimes he can't help the mask slipping. This job is intense, even on a good day. On a bad day, the first thing to go is his ability to suppress his stims: he scrunches his face as he tries to hold back twitches, sits on his hands to stop himself tearing at his pen lids. He’ll catch himself rocking in his chair for too long and stop with a jolt, glancing around quickly to see if anybody's noticed.
If they do, no one ever says anything about it. At the start, that'd been a relief. But it's been two years now, and Spencer can't tell if it's actually better or not.
They never talk about it. No one ever brings it up.
Ultimately Spencer had accepted it; the team liked him, he knew that. It was fine if they didn't understand him.
It's not perfect, but it's better than anything Spencer's ever experienced before, so he holds it tight and doesn't push it.
He's autistic - it's fine. It’s just something he has to handle alone.