For Spencer Reid, numbers had always come easily. He'd never really had to put much effort into thinking about them. In some ways he even found them calming. There was just something about working through a set of numbers that was relaxing for him. Sometimes he could lose himself for hours in mathematical problems and just let the rest of the world fade away. It was almost, meditative.

But even for Spencer, the stack of ledgers in front of him was slightly daunting. As he stood in the small office of the local homeless center—commonly called 'The Center', it was a place for the homeless with one building that was open for eating and sleeping, and another building that was built as a rec center in an old YMCA building—he stared at the desk stacked high with ledgers, boxes of papers, and random receipts. "I've been gone a month." Spencer said slowly. His eyes were wide as they traveled over everything. "A month. How on earth did this happen?"

The woman standing beside him gave a half-smile and sheepishly ran a hand through her blond hair to push back the bits that had escaped from her ponytail. Usually, the thirty five year old woman was rather calm and composed. She had to be, to run a place like this. Brianna Lewis had been running The Center since she had first opened it almost nine years ago. Before that, she'd worked at the YMCA and had thought that she and everyone around were going to lose it when the company had to pull out. Spencer had been the one to help her prevent that. With their brains and Spencer's silent financial backing, they'd managed to take this place and turn it into what it was today.

New to the city at the time, Spencer hadn't known many people, but a friend of his had connected him with Brianna. When Spencer had left Caltech to join the Academy, his friend had given him Brianna's name and contact information and told him that if he ever needed help, she was the person to go to. She was considered the unofficial mutant contact in DC and had helped many a mutant who was in trouble. Whether it was a quick escape, a bed to sleep in, a place to hide, or connecting them with someone, somewhere else who would be able to help, she acted as the local liaison for the mutant community, albeit in a very underground manner. It was how she stayed safe and how she kept her 'clients' safe.

There were very few people in the world that knew Spencer Reid was a mutant. It was a secret he kept very well hidden.

His powers were something rather unique. Spencer was only twelve when they manifested; just fresh out of high school. And, like most mutants, they'd manifested under trauma.

He'd been walking home from the store one night, out way later than any twelve year old should be, and he'd been dumb enough to try and take a shortcut that had put him in the territory of a gang that was rather new to town. One that was very vocally anti-mutant. They'd seen Spencer, someone who was known to have mutant friends, and no amount of running had been able to get him away from them. To this day, Spencer firmly believed that his mutation was the only thing that saved his life. The beating they gave him, he could've handled. He'd handled worse ones. But when they dragged him up and threatened to "see if the freak can fly!" he'd known he was in trouble.

What happened next was still a little hazy sometimes for Spencer. He remembered fighting, remembered being dragged somewhere, and then he remembered the feel of open air around him and sheer terror moments before pain ripped through his body and his spine felt like it erupted from his back.

The words that Spencer used now to describe his mutation were simple. It was a form of animal morphing; his mutation gave him avian like qualities without turning him fully into a bird. Sharper senses, faster reflexes, better balance and agility, claw retraction, a strong lung capacity—and wings.

Those wings were what pulled from his back that day and they were what save his life.

Because his mutation was a form of animal morphing, it meant not only could he bring all those physical aspects out—the wings, the claws, even a bit of feathers and down along his face, neck and ears, as well as a small crest of them threaded through his hair—he could also bring them back in. He wasn't sure how. How giant wings big enough to be capable of flight were able to pull back into his back was a mystery to him that he'd never been able to figure out. Yet, they could. It was his sort of saving grace. The one thing that allowed him a semi-normal life.

Spencer knew he was lucky that his mutation was actually capable of being hidden. There were many more who couldn't. It was only the fact that he could hide his that allowed him to have his job at the Bureau.

Being a mutant who worked at the FBI wasn't the safest thing he'd ever done. Having to hide himself wasn't easy and it definitely wasn't fun. It was worth it, though. The job was something he loved and being able to help people was exactly what he wanted to do. Working at the Bureau gave him that. It let him help people who couldn't help themselves.

Working at The Center allowed him the same.

To the rest of the world, The Center was just a homeless shelter, a rec center, a program made to help people. But it was so much more than that. It wasn't made to help regular people, though they did. The Center was there to help mutants.

In the almost nine years that Brianna had been running the place, with Spencer's discreet help, they had turned it into a local mutant shelter. Many of the 'homeless' who came through here were, in actuality, mutants. They gave them a safe place to be; a place to rest and eat and somewhere to go when they needed to run. Countless mutants had been smuggled out of the city through The Center.

It wasn't safe for Spencer's name to be attached to this place just on the off chance that something ever happened or they drew the attention of people they shouldn't. Keeping his name from it kept him safe; Brianna had insisted on doing it. But he'd backed them financially for a long time and he had a vested interest in things just as she did. He also came in frequently to do their books, such as he was doing today. He just hadn't expected there to be so much chaos when he came in. As he'd said to her, he'd only been gone a month!

Bless Brianna, she made sure to make up a pot of coffee as Spencer settled in to work. Even with his skills this was still going to take a few hours.

Spencer sat at the desk in what was considered his unofficial office and worked his way through the books. He logged away purchases, dealt with donation information, balanced out the payments for the few things they actually did charge for. It wasn't too difficult to do. There was a lot of paperwork for an organization like theirs, one that relied mostly on donations and random funding, and a discreet beneficiary whose name would never be recorded.

At some point Brianna left him alone in there. "I've got to go meet up with a guest." She told him, laying down a tray of food beside him. "He's here to help make sure some of our friends get to new homes. Now, make sure you eat some of this, Spencer. I'm not having you starve on my watch. And I'll stop back by in a bit to yank you out of the books. You should at least spend a little time with the people today. I know Timothy's been wanting to talk to you about some book or another that he brought in, and Zep misses you. Don't work too hard!"

With that last warning she'd left him alone and Spencer had lost himself entirely in a world of numbers.

He'd gone so deep in it he didn't hear anyone coming towards the office. But his head snapped up when the door burst open. Sixteen year old Zep, one of their most common visitors at The Center, was standing there clutching the doorframe with his green eyes wide and his black hair windblown as if he'd run the whole way here. There was a tremble to the thin, slender body that had Spencer immediately on alert. "Doc, you gotta sound the alarm, now. We got FOH coming."

That was all it took to have Spencer moving. One hand reached under the desk to the panel there and he quickly pressed the button for their alarm. Zep wouldn't come to him with this if it wasn't true. He was one of their best sources on the streets and his facts were never wrong.

All through The Center silent alarms would be going off, alerting staff to a situation. Every single staff member here was a mutant or was mutant friendly. All of them would work on getting everyone out of here as quickly as they possibly could. This alarm meant was trouble coming and to get everyone evacuated, now, or at least to somewhere safe.

Spencer was on his feet a second later and he rushed out of the room, with Zep moving to follow at his heels. "How far out, Zep?"

"We got minutes, maybe." Zep said. "I didn't get word in time, Doc, I'm sorry. I couldn't get here any faster."

"It's fine. Any notice is better than none."

They were just barely downstairs before they heard the first crashes and the sound of screams. Oh, God. A low moan built in Spencer's throat and was ruthlessly choked down. He tried to run faster, almost falling down the stairs, but his legs couldn't carry him fast enough to get there before there was the sound of gunshots. They came from all over, gunshots and screams and the sounds of terror unlike anything this building had ever housed before. Fear and panic rocketed in the young genius and he wanted nothing more than to fling himself in that room and do anything he could to stop this. Years of training held him back. It was the only thing that kept him from racing in and getting himself killed right along with everyone else. No matter how scared he was, no matter what else he felt, he'd been trained to be an agent and those instincts were what pushed to the forefront. Spencer flung out an arm to stop Zep from racing past him. Yanking back, he shoved the teen behind him and against the wall. "Go down the hall." He hissed, voice just loud enough to be heard over all the noise. "Get below and get every mutant we're hiding out through the tunnels. Do it, Zep!"

Only when the boy was gone did Spencer turn back towards the rest of the building. Rushing in would only get him killed, he knew. To the right, towards the gymnasium, the gunshots were louder, the screams slowly dying off. Spencer went to the left. Over there was the rec room—and the children. They'd be in there watching movies or playing pool or doing their homework. They had plenty of kids, human and mutant alike, who hung out in there. If no one had gotten to them yet, they had to be the first priority. Evacuation had to come first.

Spencer hit the room at a dead run and was almost blasted off his feet by a wave of TK. It succeeded in slamming him against the wall and holding him there for the few seconds it took for the kids to realize who he was. Then the TK was gone. "Doc!" someone shouted out. Spencer looked up and found seventeen year old Jesse, the one with the TK, standing in front of a group of at least fifteen different kids while still more were crouched over behind some of the couches. Saturday—movie day, his brain reminded him. That was why they were so full.

There was no time to waste. Spencer could hear the screams and the gunshots, everything getting louder, and he knew it wasn't going to be long before they were here. There was no time for him to stand and panic. The agent in him was in the forefront and it had him shoving off the wall and moving towards the bookshelf nearby. "We need to get you all out of here, now. Come over here." He felt along the books as he spoke until he finally got the one he wanted. A quick tug and the edge of the bookcase unlatched. When he reached out to grab it, Jesse's hands were there to help, pulling it open. It revealed a hole in the ground and a ladder that led down to the underground suites, the tunnels that they had so carefully worked over the years. "Jesse, you go down first." Spencer instructed. He turned to look at the rest of the group, motioning everyone forward. "All of you, follow him down. Richard," The teen in the back perked up at the sound of his name. "Make sure everyone gets down safely. I'm putting you in charge of this. Get them in there and then hit the button at the bottom of the ladder. It'll close the bookcase."

"What about you?" One of the kids asked.

Already Spencer was turning around and moving. "I'll keep them away from here. Go!"

Long legs carried him out of the room and back into the hallway. Spencer knew this was suicide; he knew that the FOH would have no qualms gunning him down just the same as everyone else. But all he could think of right then were all the people in here, all the lives he needed to save, all the ones who would be hurt if he couldn't give them some sort of distraction.

Only, he didn't make it very far. Just as he hit the auditorium, knowing that there was a group in there practicing their play, the doors on the opposite side opened and a man carrying a gun. The agent part of Spencer immediately logged away a few facts. The gun was a AK-47 and was held in a grip that was quite obviously familiar with it. The man holding it wasn't bothering to hide his face and there was a fanatical light there that said that had Spence's stomach sinking.

It took almost no thought at all for Spencer to launch himself forward and towards the group that were still standing on the stage, staring in terror at the newcomer. "Wait!" Spencer called out, flinging himself up there, hands held out at the ready. There were twelve kids total on stage, most of them teenagers. There was one, Myles, who was just a kid, no more than seven, here with his big brother. The kid was already sobbing. Spencer placed himself between all of them and the gunman and held his hands out in a plea to stop, to just listen. "Please, stop. Stop."

"Why should I?" The man growled out. He grinned and lifted his gun, striding in with the confidence of someone who believes what they're doing is right and who isn't afraid to die for that.

Spencer kept his hands out, backing up only a little, trying to push the kids to move somewhat. If he could get them close enough, they could escape behind the curtain, get backstage, and maybe get out of here somehow. "These kids haven't done anything to you. They're good kids. Innocent kids. They aren't mutants. They're just kids."

"Save your lies for someone that believes 'em." The guy said.

With horror, Spencer watched him move, read the intent in his body language, and he knew what was coming next. "Run!" he shouted, already starting to turn. "Run!"

They'd only gone a few steps when Spencer heard the first gunshot—and then he heard something else. There was a giant rumble and the whole building seemed to shake. Horror lit Spencer's face as another rumble sounded, than other, and he knew what was coming. The next rumble was nearby, all around them, shaking them so hard it almost knocked them over, and then suddenly it seemed as if the whole world exploded. A bomb, he realized. They've set off a bomb.

Spencer didn't think, didn't do more than react. He spun towards the children and felt the familiar ripping sensation along his spine as his wings erupted from his back and he curled protectively over them all.