𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐓𝐒, spencer reid

⠀ two. welcome to the sequel

Until — smack —

Nancy's head collided, rather cartoonishly, with a glass door, her body ricocheting backward from the impact as her hand flew to cover her now aching nose.

"Oh!" she groaned, redness in her cheeks so prominent she could see them in the reflection of the glass. That certainly was one way to get snapped out of a panic attack. She was too pissed off at how much her nose hurt to be anxious anymore.

But, at least nobody saw her completely embarrass herse-

"Are you okay?"

Shit.

The voice behind her was an amalgamation of confusion and concern, and the young man behind it seemed far too slender and well-mannered to be an FBI agent.

"Yeah..." groaned Nancy, pinching her nose, "Yup... nothing's broken, so..."

The young man's expression changed ever so slightly upon realizing she wasn't so badly hurt, the hand that wasn't tightly gripping the strap of his satchel rising to point at the bold letters engraved into a silver plaque, "It... it's a pull door..." he trailed off. As though he knew that his words would likely piss off the girl he'd met all of two minutes ago, and yet he simply could not hold them back.

Nancy's gaze darkened, her once pained expression now a glare intense enough, in some different reality the poor kid would have turned to stone, "Gee, thanks, Einstein," her head tilted to the side, "my next plan was to start lifting from the bottom," genuine shock covered his features at just how quickly the young agent had turned hostile. She realized it too, regretting her words as her gaze softened ever so slightly, "I... I'm sorry, that- that was mean," Nancy's clearly frazzled mind didn't quite have time to compute the fact that the still unnamed man's expression had dropped entirely, "I'm-"

"Bleeding,"

"What?"

"Y-you're bleeding,"

Hand rising quickly to her nose, Nancy's eyes widened at the sight of blood the second she pulled it away, "Shit!"

"Here," deciding simply to extend a handkerchief, which Nancy subconsciously noted was an odd thing to just straight up have in your pocket, she used one hand to quickly pinch her nose as the other reached for the tissue.

"Thanks..." she trailed off, looking up when she realized she's still yet to learn this guy's name, "Uh..."

"Spencer..." he smiled, rather nervously as his hands wrapped once again around the strap of his sachel, "Reid, uh, Dr... Dr. Reid," clearing his throat, he looked as though he already suspected Nancy wouldn't believe what he was about to say, "FBI..."

Nancy's eyes narrowed into a doubtful stare, although she knew, whoever this Dr. Reid character was, had no reason to lie, "Right... Nancy Chavez..." she winced in embarrassment, "Special Agent... also FBI..." a nervous laugh escaped her lips at how hypocritical her thoughts had been thus far. Suspicious of the skinny guy when she quite literally tried to fight a door, "I swear I'm not normally this clumsy," Spencer nodded; if she didn't know better Nancy would have suspected he was very carefully selecting his words.

"I believe you..." he nodded, clearing his throat as Nancy soon realized just what he looked so desperately like he was trying to hold back, "You know, pushing on a pull door is not as uncommon as one might think. Our brains spend about 47% of the day on autopilot," Nancy couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. Who the hell randomly knows so much about how the psychology of doors? "Doors with a handle or a knob let us know it's meant to be pulled. Whereas a door with a bar or no handle at all gives the brain an indication to push," hand slightly raised, Spencer pointed to the iron bar replicated on either side of the door, "Because this is a glass door, with a handle on both sides, your subconscious mind made the decision to push despite having a 50% chance of being incorrect," the doctor seemed almost confused at his ramblings, as though he's usually been stopped by now, "It's called a- a Norman Door? After Professor Don Norman, whose original study into the psychology of everyday items was accompanied by a book release in 1988,"