Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Criminal Minds (but am totally willing to take over the reins and restart the series, k, CBS?)

Warning: This chapter contains a somewhat dark and disturbing case, as you would typically see on Criminal Minds.

Reid strolled into the BAU the next day, a bounce in his step that hadn't been there in quite some time. As he approached JJ's desk, she lifted her head up and smiled at him, her eyes shining brightly.

"Morning," Reid crowed, unable to prevent the blush that crept onto his cheeks.

JJ grinned. "Spence, hey."

Reid cleared his throat, forcing his eyes away from the tight-fitting black shirt she was wearing. "Beautiful day, isn't it?"

"Yup," JJ replied, doing a better job at acting casual. "Fall is such a nice season."

Alvez chuckled behind them, causing Reid to whip around.

"What?" he said, studying Alvez's childish grin.

"Nothing," the profiler said, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Just enjoying the show."

JJ narrowed her eyes at him. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Just then, Emily poked her head out of her office and called down to them, "We've got a case."

JJ met Reid's gaze. Saved by the bell ... er, serial killer.

"After you," Reid said, holding his hand out to motion JJ through the doorway. She thanked him, grinning as she took the seat beside him around the table.

As Brian began filling them in on the latest Unsub, Reid felt hyperaware of the presence of JJ beside him. It took all of his brain power to hone in on the case, and not the beautiful blonde seated to his right.

"Today's case involves a series of women found dead in hotel rooms across the east coast," Brian explained, flicking on the screen. "The latest victim, 23-year-old Tanya Waters, was found by housekeeping in a Marriott Hotel in Tampa, Florida. When investigators arrived on the scene, they encountered Tanya fully nude, her wrists tied to the bedpost, with bruising along her chest and torso. All women share the same cause of death: bludgeoned to death with a blunt object."

"Any connection between the victims?" Tara spoke up, while Rossi nodded his head.

"See for yourself," Brian replied, flipping through to the next image, which displayed four photographs of bloody women sprawled out on white sheets.

"They're all blond," Alvez said, squinting his eyes. "Wait a minute. Did he do that?"

"If you mean chop off their hair, then unfortunately, the answer is yes."

Emily cringed. "That's quite the hack job. It's almost like he parted their hair in the center and then took shears to both sides of their face."

Reid noticed JJ swipe her hair behind her ears self-consciously.

"I'm assuming there was evidence of sexual assault?" This was Rossi.

"You are correct, sir," Brian responded, grimacing.

"What about the locations?" Reid piped up. "The Unsub's attacked women in Boston, New York City, Newark, and now Tampa. That's not much of a pattern."

"Which brings me to my next point, Doctor Reid," Brian said, bowing at Reid with his palms together. "At the time of each murder, these hotels were all hosting a particularly exciting event for nerds such as myself. Any guesses?"

Alvez chucked. "I didn't realize we were on the set of Family Feud."

Reid shrank down into his chair as his coworkers turned to face him expectantly. Clearing his throat, he said, "I think what Brian might be referring to is Comic-Con."

Brian aimed his pointer finger at Reid, pretending to shoot him. It struck Reid as a particularly odd gesture to use against someone who dodges bullets for a living, but he remained silent.

"The Tampa Comics Convention is a three-day affair that attracts people from all over the mortal realm. Staff are anticipating there will be at least one more murder before the event comes to a close."

"And they're not canceling?" Tara said.

Brian shrugged. "People flew in from as far as Japan to attend. The hotel is fully booked. Plus, it'd be bad for business."

"So would a murder," Rossi said under his breath. "Well, I guess we better get going if we want to stop the nerd gallivanting around as Batman."

"Actually, Batman is portrayed as a heroic character throughout much of the series—" Reid began, until a head shake from JJ silenced him.

"Wheels up in twenty," Emily said, and they all rose as one.

~

As the team piled onto the jet, Reid found himself growing frustrated when Tara took the seat beside JJ, but he quickly collected himself and shuffled into the seat across from her instead.

It was a long flight. JJ was unusually quiet, her eyes flitting between the window and his face. Both of them found it difficult to strike up a conversation with the keen ears of David Rossi and Tara just inches away.

Finally, the plane touched down and they dismounted in Tampa. Tara opened her arms wide, reveling in the moist, sticky weather. Reid, on the other hand, hated the heat. Being around JJ at work was already making him sweat as it is; he didn't need a 100-degree November day adding to his embarrassment.

JJ lowered a pair of sunglasses over her eyes, fanning herself with the magazine she'd been reading on the jet. Some Cosmopolitan thing, by the looks of it.

They paired off and went their separate ways. Reid and JJ were assigned to the crime scene, Alvez and Lewis took care of interviewing the victim's friends, and Rossi, Prentiss, and Simmons met with the local investigation team to offer their assistance.

As they arrived on scene at the Marriott, Reid held the door for JJ, and they approached the front desk. On their journey across the lobby, Reid gasped and pointed at several costumed attendees, explaining who they were dressed as to JJ.

"That man there is R2D2!" Reid said, his heart ecstatic. "And look, Spock!"

"Need I remind you why we're here?" JJ said jokingly, towing him toward the waiting staff. A woman with a neck tattoo of a bear claw lifted her head to greet them.

"Welcome to the Marriott," she said, already beginning to hit letters on her keyboard. "What was your reservation under?"

"Oh, no, we're not, um ..."

"Special Agent Jennifer Jareau of the Behavioral Analysis Unit," JJ took over, saving Reid the embarrassment. "This is my partner, Doctor Spencer Reid."

"Oh, right," the tatted woman said, glancing behind her. "Suze! The feds are here!"

JJ cringed as several nearby heads turned to look in their direction.

A moment later, a tall redhead bounced out of the back office and stretched out a hand to greet them.

"Thank you for coming, agents," she smiled, leading them toward the elevator. "This place has been a zoo since yesterday morning."

They took the elevator to the fourth floor, where Suze rounded a corner and slid a hotel key into its slot.

"Be warned," she said, her tone grave. "It's quite graphic."

Reid always felt like laughing whenever someone offered them a warning like this. Since when was a day at the BAU not graphic?

As they entered the room, Reid didn't notice anything unusual at first—no lamps knocked over or chairs overturned, typical signs of a struggle. But then, he saw the bed, and the crimson sheets soaked through with blood. What looked like a black belt ripped in two still hung to the bedpost, its silver rhinestones coated in red splatter. On one of the hotel pillows, someone had written "Good Night" with a blood-smeared finger.

"And her clothes were never found?" Reid asked the hotel manager, who shook her head.

"No, we would've covered her in them if we'd found them. Poor thing was left completely exposed."

Rather than inform this woman that, kind though the gesture was, her actions would be viewed as tampering with the evidence, Reid kept his mouth shut tight and continued to survey the room.

"Spence," JJ said from behind him, and he turned around. "Check out the trash can."

Reid closed the distance between them, looking over her shoulder at the evidence. "Hairspray?"

"Coloring," JJ said, reaching with her gloves to examine it further. "One red, one blue."

Reid met JJ's eyes, then glanced back at the soiled bed. "Could've been hers, or the Unsub's. Did they find hair dye at the other crime scenes?"

JJ frowned, shaking her head. "Change in his M.O.?"

Reid studied her for a second, and then a lightbulb flickered on inside his head. "Or he didn't need it with the others."

Crossing the room, Reid leaned over the bed to peer at the rhinestone belt. "Cheap leather bondage. Probably from a costume shop."

JJ's eyebrows raised as she looked at him. "Oh?"

"Not that I would know," Reid said, his face flushing a brilliant red that nearly matched the bedsheets below him. "Just a hunch."

"Mhmm."

Reid turned away from her and kept his head down so she couldn't see the humiliation on his face. "JJ, do you remember what Prentiss said about the victim's hair being parted down the middle before it was hacked off?"

"Yeah ..."

"Could she have been wearing pigtails?"

JJ bit her lip. "It's possible. So, what, this guy cuts off girls' pigtails and keeps them as souvenirs?"

"I think I know what's going on here," Reid said, standing upright again. "The pigtails, the red and blue hair coloring, the rhinestone belt, 'Good Night' ... I think our Unsub has a Harley Quinn fetish."

"As in Batman and the Joker's Harley Quinn?" JJ said, crossing her arms.

Reid grinned. "You know her!"

"Woah there, don't go lumping me in with the rest of you nerds," she kidded. "Harley Quinn happens to be Henry's latest celebrity crush."

Reid nodded, as if he understood, then immediately regretted it.

"Back to the case," he said, changing the subject, "if my calculations are correct, the victim is tracking down girls who dress up as Harley Quinn for Comic-Con, having sex with them, and then murdering them with a blunt object, probably a bat. That was one of her weapons of choice."

"But we don't know if the sex happened peri- or post-mortem," JJ reminded him. "Or, if it was consensual."

"Given the significant lack of struggle, my hypothesis is that he charmed them into having sex with him, and the act of killing took them completely by surprise."

"Okay," JJ said, musing over his words, "but if there was an attraction there, why murder them at all? And why take their hair and clothes as souvenirs?"

"Maybe it's all a part of his fantasy," Reid said, the awkwardness of this conversation beginning to weigh on him. He turned his head away from JJ, so often the subject of his own fantasies, and feigned a cough to clear his throat. "Once he's had them, the thrill is gone, and murdering them gives him his next high."

JJ let out a long, slow breath. "I guess we should tell the team we're ready to give the profile."

~

"So what's the plan?" Simmons asked as they all gathered in a conference room after delivering the profile. "Guard all women dressed up as Harley Quinn?"

"That narrows it down to about two hundred," Tara said, rolling her eyes.

"I've asked the hotel manager to send out a memo to all Comic-Con guests requesting that they not wear a Harley Quinn costume," Emily reported. "Of course, only some of them will read the email, and even fewer will actually follow the directions."

"Can't we just bar any Harley lookalikes from entering?" JJ asked.

"Apparently, that would cause too much of a scene," Emily said, clearly unhappy with the hotel's policy on keeping their guests in the dark.

"I say we spread out, station a different agent at every entrance, and keep our eyes peeled," Alvez suggested.

"Or," Tara spoke up, rising from her chair, "we could push the odds more in our favor."

"What are you scheming up over there?" Rossi asked.

Agent Lewis sighed. "I say we throw our own Harley Quinn into the mix. Lure this guy away from other potential victims by presenting him with a blond bombshell he can't resist."

At this, all eyes turned on JJ. Reid stiffened, his hands clenching the table in front of him.

"No. Absolutely not. We can't put JJ at risk like that!"

"It does give us more control over the situation," Simmons said, tapping his mouth with his finger.

"We're not using JJ as bait!" Reid raised his voice, slamming his hands down onto the table. "This guy's too dangerous!"

"Spence," JJ whispered, looking at him with doe eyes. "I think it's a good idea."

Reid froze. "But, no, you can't! Emily—"

"It's JJ's call," Prentiss announced, frowning at Reid apologetically. "I do think it'll give us the upper hand. And JJ is more than capable of defending herself should the situation arise."

JJ's eyes met Reid's. "I'll be okay," she tried to comfort him, but Reid thrust his head in his hands, beside himself.

"We almost lost you," he said quietly, his hands muffling his speech. "That was barely a year ago. And now you're all willing to chance something like that happening again?"

"Reid," Emily said, "the minute anything goes awry, we pull her out. You have my word."

Reid nodded, unable to think of anything else to say. Inside, he felt numb.

"Well, it looks like we're going to need to get you a costume," Tara said, patting JJ on the shoulder in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"Make that costumes," Rossi amended. "We can't go in there looking like a bunch of federal agents. It'll spook him."

"I guarantee the local costume stores have already been wiped clean of anything good," Simmons said. "It'd be like shopping for a Halloween costume at noon on Halloween. And trust me, I've been there."

"If only we knew someone with a penchant for fashion who could advise us on how to throw a few costumes together," Alvez said, a goofy grin on his face. "I think it's time we called up our girl Garcia."

~

Two hours later, the team departed the elevator dressed to the nines. Emily was a DIY-version of Lily from The Munsters, Tara went as Penny from The Proud Family, Matt sported a giant key on his back as Sora from Kingdom Hearts, Alvez was working some serious face makeup to look like Hector from the movie Coco, and Rossi was embracing the grays as Old Man Logan from the Wolverine comics. Tara was able to score Reid a last-minute costume at the shop down the street, so he ambled around in a green suit that smelled funny and made him sweat even worse than before.

"What am I supposed to be again?" he asked Tara, holding a green mask with bulging white eyes and what looked like a banana stuck to its top.

"You're Rumple Buttercup! He's new to the comics scene, but destined to be a huge hit."

Reid took one last look at JJ, who looked sexy as hell in her high pigtails and tall black boots. "You sure you want to do this?"

JJ grinned. "For the hundredth time, yes. I'll be fine, Spence."

She touched his arm, and even through the layer of green fur, he could feel the heat her closeness gave off.

"Just be careful," he said, his throat catching on the last word.

***Author Note: I cannot thank you all enough for your enthusiastic responses to this story. I'm planning on wrapping it all up at Chapter 20, so that leaves us with 4 more chapters to go. But I promise they will give you all the feels, and I truly hope I do the Jeid fandom justice. For all you Matthew Gray Gubler fans, if you haven't checked out his new children's book series featuring the lovable and legendary Rumple Buttercup, you are missing out!

If you enjoy this fanfiction, please check out my self-published book series on Amazon (see link in my profile). For some Jeid videos I've created, check out my YouTube channel (also linked in my profile). Thanks again (and again and again and again) for all the support!