Third story in the Firewall series.
1. High Voltage
2. Live Wire
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The emergency underground offices of MI6 had long become the new, permanent location of the intelligence operation. More and more levels had been added to the control rooms that had been present right after the former headquarters had been under attack. Security was tight, twice, maybe even triple the amount of before, and whatever was brought back from assignment was only examined under quarantine conditions. No captured data drive was directly connected to the mainframe and every electronic device was put under heavy shields.
MI6 had made a mistake once. They had learned from it.
Q had made a mistake. He wouldn't be so easily fooled again.
M hadn't blamed his young quartermaster for introducing the virus from Silva's laptop. It had been hidden under layers of code that Q would have discovered in time if they hadn't been under such pressure to get inside. Mallory was quite aware that Q was blaming himself enough already; heaping more on his shoulders wouldn't further productivity.
No, they all had their share of blame to work through.
Even James Bond.
The traditionalism was still there, in some corners, and it would survive, of course, but the new age had taken a hold. MI6 had learned that cyber-terrorism was more than hacked bank accounts, stolen identities and white collar fraud.
It was a virus.
They needed an antidote.
Q had made sure of stressing it again and again in the countless meetings he had been sitting in throughout the past months. He knew what he was talking about; he could have been a cyber-terrorist if the former M hadn't found him – or his technopathy hadn't been close to turning him into a raving lunatic. The internet was a wide realm. No one controlled it, no one was truly protected, and whenever a new security network went up, hackers salivated over the challenge to break it.
Q knew.
He liked to break such so-called unbreakable networks in his spare time.
His branch was now fully operational and doing everything in their considerable power of collected skills to protect themselves, their agents, everyone in the building.
The media riot over the explosion at the old headquarters had blown over. Here and there smaller articles cropped up, but MI6 had made sure to keep things under control.
Tunnels formed a maze under the streets of London, leading to ancient bunkers, the sewer system, the underground railroad, or to dead ends. Mallory had ordered a reinforcement of those critical junctions. Q didn't have to be asked twice to supply the necessary technology to make the junctions secure. There were cameras no one had ever seen before and didn't see even when they were looking directly at them. Biometric sensors kept track of the people moving through the tunnels. Scanners allowed access to certain areas and only to a select few.
Q branch had outdone itself.
Some tunnels led into storage facilities, offices, testing areas and the exercise rooms for the field agents and office drones alike. There was even a pool now, which James Bond liked to use for early morning swims. He carved through the water, lane after lane, muscles moving smoothly under the scarred skin, his body functioning to his satisfaction.
He felt young again. Not just at heart. It was everything. His body was fit, trim, performing perfectly throughout the variety of tests field agents went through again and again to ascertain their field worthiness. Lines of fatigue and pain and a life that was nothing but torn shreds in his soul had disappeared.
004 had remarked he had that glow again, that light in his eyes, when they had gone up against each other in a very heavy, fast and hard personal defense training.
Bond knew what 004 had meant. He no longer felt so torn, held together by sheer stubbornness and tenacity and the will not to give in. The phoenix was no longer a rabid bird, perched across his mind like the dark shadow it was, claws buried in his soul and screaming for freedom.
He was free now. The phoenix was free. And it hadn't killed him.
Bond smiled as he pulled himself out of the pool, excess water running off in rivulets.
He might be an old man compared to the other Double-Ohs. He might have the longest service record. He might be a tenacious, gray wolf. But he wasn't out of the game just yet. He had an advantage now. His preternatural side was soaring free, it was at his full disposal. He had gotten into this new game at a late stage, but there was something no one could take from him now. His chains were broken.
The phoenix was still a vicious creature, always hungry for the kill, always ready to strike, take a life, with no remorse, but it wasn't out of control any more. When, not if, he died on a mission, Bond didn't fear coming back.
Coming back had been pain and madness and the high of a very good drug. It had let him soar and strike, it had made him so terribly good at his job. The energy coursing through him after a rebirth had been bled off into sex, alcohol and dangerous games. Yes, it had been abuse. He had tortured himself in every single possible way. He had made his own life hell because his life had been hell.
There had been a lot of moments in his life when James Bond had cursed his preternatural side, when he had looked at himself in the mirror and seen the broken, savage, cruel thing that lived inside him, that was him. He had seen it in his eyes, lurking in his depths, waiting to be free of the last restraints that were his humanity.
He had silenced the whispers with alcohol and pain medication. He had fed it with the violence of his job. He had lived dangerously and he had been addicted to it all.
Now the phoenix was free and it was not like he had ever imagined it to be.
He still liked high stakes. He still gambled. He still enjoyed his liquor. He still liked sex; a lot. What had changed was that he could have the latter with one singular person and not feel empty afterwards. He could let go with that one person, he could be the preternatural.
It had renewed him. He was a phoenix after all. But this rebirth had been different. He hadn't died; he had bonded. He had gained a stability he hadn't ever been able to imagine, a renewal that went soul-deep.
Bond showered, toweled off and picked his way down a set of tunnels to another addition that had come to the new headquarters.
Finally, Q had remarked when it had happened. It had been about time.
It was the extensive range for weapons testing of Q branch. It was not to be confused with the shooting range for the agents. That one was off limits for experiments, just like the test range was off limits for agents. It was a good place to be when there was a lull between missions.
Especially when the man on the range was his quartermaster.
Bond walked with a feline grace that had office workers and other agents get out of his way, cast him surreptitious glances, look twice as he passed. He knew they were talking about his new-found youth and strength, about how he didn't fail a single test. His self-assured gait was back, as was his speed and accuracy.
Let them talk. He actually liked it, gave them cool, sometimes provocative looks, and for some of the female staff he added a certain flirt to it. Hot blushes and shy looks followed him. Bond knew the rumor mill about him.
That he slept with everyone – not true. It wasn't everyone.
That no one could resist him – not true. He had run into walls before.
That he left broken hearts in his wake – maybe true. Bond wasn't actively trying to break someone's heart, but he had never been in this for the long run.
Until a few months ago. It was amazing how different it was, how much he felt without being able to put it into words.
Bond took his place behind the safety glass that allowed others to watch the range without getting blown up. He was in simple sweats, used when the field agents were exercising. His suit was in his locker.
Blue eyes, pale and wintery, were scanning over the huge room, its various test areas, and still found their way back to the slender man currently going over a variety of new weapons.
Q.
His handler.
And so much more.
They hadn't seen each other in person for over a month now. Bond had been on assignment. It had been a quick job, actually. Faster than they had dared to hope and the head of a smuggling ring now sat in some hellhole prison in Uganda while Bond had slipped away with a list of customers in Europe.
Perfect execution. Not even a bruise to show. It had been almost like a vacation.
For most of the time he had been talking to Q through the hyper secure connection, chatting with him about menial things when matters were slow or had come to a standstill. On other times he had executed whatever directional orders Q had given him, had followed the calm, competent commands, and had joked here or there with his handler.
Routine.
And still not routine.
Nothing about them would ever be.
James Bond had had a lot of relationships in the past, one of which had been serious enough for him to consider making it permanent.
Then he had been betrayed by that very person.
It had scarred him deep down in his very soul. It had pushed him beyond what he had already been, had made him colder, more prone to taking risks now. He had always courted death up until Vesper. After her the violence that was inherent in his preternatural heritage had taken over. Death didn't scare him, never had, and now the ruthlessness was even worse.
His life had been two chapters: before her, after her.
Simple.
Clean cut.
Until Eve had shot him; until the hard impact on the river below the high bridge had killed him.
Again.
He had been on that edge so long, he had been leaning over and flirting with the abyss.
M's orders to take the shot, that one shot that had drowned him in a raging river, which had spit him out miles from the bridge, had closed that last chapter.
He had embraced the primal creature he was, had numbed the hunger as best as he could, and still it had been there, prowling ceaselessly, directionless, snarling and snapping and irritated.
Bond had pulled himself together one last time, had sworn to himself that when he was done finding the one or ones responsible for the attack and eight deaths at MI6, he would leave. In more than one sense of the word.
And then there had been Q.
Q was so utterly different from them all. Not because he was a man. Bond had told Silva the truth when he had hinted that it hadn't been his first time. Not by far. He had taken men to bed, just like he had taken women. He enjoyed himself wherever he could find enjoyment, and he never regretted it. He never wallowed in guilt over the death of a bedpartner. They died as he lived on.
Q was different.
No mark. No suave lover. No playboy. Not out to gain from flirting with him. Actually, there had been no flirting. At least none Bond was used to or could remember. There had been the annoyance, exasperation, the level looks and the even voice.
The calmness. The peace.
He had been incredibly drawn to it and still was.
Yes, he needed the man to stay sane, stable, balanced. He needed him and for an independent agent like him it should be crippling, but it had only made him stronger. He enjoyed sleeping with his quartermaster, but it was so much more than physical. It sated his preternatural side like nothing ever had in the past. Sex was sex, but sex with Q was strength, sharing more than bodies.
It was among equals.
No powerplay.
No lies.
Just them.
And it was permanent without either actually saying it. No rings, no vows, no words.
Bond knew that the anchor he was to Q was unique. A technopath could choose only one. When he had latched onto the darkness that was the phoenix and used the cold core to hold on to his very mind, Bond had gained a partner he had never imagined.
Q needed… him. Just him. Not the agent. Just James.
And he understood the needs of the phoenix and gave whatever he could, freely. No strings attached. No rages of jealousy over the women on the job. It was the job; he did whatever was necessary to get what he needed.
Bond smiled as his eyes ran up and down his quartermaster's form. The man appealed to him. He was not even close to his usual prey, but he was everything to him.
Perfection.
His smile grew. They made quite a pair. An old agent and a hipster looking computer scientist. The smile widened. Yes, quite a pair. One no one would suspect of working as they did.
Q was checking the latest of his branch's guns, expertly loading it.
Of course he would.
Many field agents first made the mistake to believe that the employees of Q branch were theoretical scientists only. Bond had heard many new ones mutter about how those geeks had no idea what they were doing, that all they did was play with their computer programs and that they had no practical applications.
They were very, very wrong.
There was an unspoken rule among the senior agents, be it Double-Ohs or special agents or just your normal field agent. Don't mess with Q.
Actually, it was closely followed by another rule: never underestimate 007. Bond knew that junior agents talked about him, muttered about his age and how M could still tolerate him as an active field agent.
They had no idea who he was until he was teamed up with one of them. They usually came back pretty shaken and mostly in awe of what this 'old dog' was capable of.
The key to it all, to breaking his chains and reining in the dark creature he was stood before him, preparing to test his latest in weapons development.
For all his apparent youth – he really did look about half his age – Q wasn't to be trifled with. He was the director of Q branch. His word was rule. He outfitted the agents, he had the latest in tech and toys, and he knew exactly what he was doing. He knew everything about the weapons he handed out, and not just from the handbooks he had written himself.
Not that there were actual handbooks. Instructions were done in person and with pointed looks that told the agent in question to pay attention.
If Q didn't give you a shiny new weapon, you had failed in some regard. Many agents had found that one out the hard way, when they had tried to run the younger man over. No one did that with Q; he didn't budge, he didn't break. He was the one in charge and if an agent ran to M to have him revoke a decision, the agent in question usually caught an earful.
Bond smiled. Yes, he had heard it all since Q had come to MI6.
Q branch tested everything to the point where they deemed it ready for the field. No agents were given experimental tech that might blow up in their face. Not even Double-Ohs.
Q was often seen hands-on testing things. Bond had never made the mistake of underestimating the other man. It was an early lesson learned, while becoming a field agent for MI6: looks were always deceiving.
And Q was the perfect example. He looked the computer nerd, the weak pencil pusher who could wage a war from his laptop, but had no idea what happened out in the real world. He might be a good first-person-shooter in a video game, but not when it came to real guns.
So wrong.
Q was certified for handguns. He had a license. He could carry a concealed weapon, though he hadn't so far. Even the attack on MI6 hadn't given him second thoughts about that particular fact.
Bond knew that there were weapons lockers around Q branch, that Q had one gun hidden somewhere on his table – oh, and he knew exactly where – and that access to those weapons was coded.
So yes, high-ranking MI6 personnel solely employed in R&D was certified and trained. There was security all around, but Silva had shown them just how easy it was to take them out, if something happened unawares. And Bond was very much aware that he could lose his handler and partner inside MI6 as well, should something like this ever happen again.
The phoenix rumbled softly at that thought.
He pushed it away, eyes steady on the slender man, relaxing at the sight of Q healthy and whole.
Today's test run was guns and personal protection.
Bond leaned back casually against the brick wall behind him, admiring the long, lean lines of his partner. The striped pants only enhanced that look, as did the white shirt over which he wore a red and black vest. That the tie was a mustard yellow wasn't really an eye-sore. It was Q and Q looked good in almost anything; or out of it.
The agent smiled briefly, a predatory, dark smile that had scared one or two interns already this morning.
Right now, him and Q were alone.
He was really looking forward to tonight, to stripping those clothes off the nicely formed body.
The quartermaster put on safety glasses and passive ear defenders to protect his hearing. Q's face was blank, reflecting concentration as he aimed at the target that had been placed halfway between him and the end of the range. It was a dummy, life-like, reacting to being shot at like a human being would. The fake skin and bones and muscles would give accurate readings concerning the damage the projectile would do.
The shot was barely audible. More like the pop of a soda can being opened.
The result was a sizeable hole in the dummy's abdomen.
Bond raised an eyebrow, impressed.
Q frowned, turned to his ever-present laptop, and typed something.
The field agent in Bond had assessed Q's stance. Steady, calm, right on target. Just the right tension, compensating for a possible recoil, eyes firmly on the mark.
Q reloaded, this time with several shots, and aimed at the next target. He fired off the shots in quick succession and Bond's appreciation rose. Yes, his quartermaster couldn't just shoot, he also hit the target. Not anywhere near the success rate of a trained field agent, but pretty much where it hurt and incapacitated.
He stayed for the whole range of weapons Q had on his table and he found some of them very, very interesting, itching to try them out himself. From Q's expression when it came to some of the smaller, easily concealed close range guns, he wasn't one hundred percent pleased with them. For Bond, who knew the gun had to kill and the target had to be dead, it was enough. Those that were meant to incapacitate were good, too.
And he simply loved the one that had managed to bring down a wall with a single shot. It was a miniature explosive device and he knew he wanted it.
Q stored all used weapons in safety cases when he was done, making notes on the laptop, then walked to the assorted 'dead' dummies and the wall he had brought down. Bond noiselessly came over, intrigued.
"Impressive," he commented.
If Q was surprised, he didn't show it. His face remained almost neutral, but there was a tiny flicker of a smile.
Welcome back.
Bond let the corners of his mouth crinkle a little. Good to be back.
"You would be impressed," Q said.
"You make it sound like that is easy to achieve."
"It is easy."
Bond quirked an eyebrow, prowling around the dummy with the gut shot. That would have killed a man instantly. Even the spine had been broken, though the dummy hadn't been torn in half.
"Messy," Q only said, frowning slightly.
"The field isn't clean cut, Q. We do what we have to survive."
"I believe I know just how messy it can be, 007. I'm trying to reduce the blood pools that give you away."
"Commendable, but when you need a quick kill, you don't argue what the weapon of choice leaves behind."
"True."
He shadowed his quartermaster through his rounds, smiling slightly when they came to the wall.
"Nice work."
Q almost grimaced. "This I knew you would like. It's still very much in the experimental stage, Bond. Stop salivating."
He gave his partner a, for him, wide smile. "It worked for me."
"Everything that explodes works for you."
"I'm a simple man, Q."
His quartermaster turned and gave him a more than dubious look. It quite loudly proclaimed 'I'm not an idiot, Bond'. The ear protection was still curled around his neck, the safety glasses perched on top of his head. For an insane moment Bond wanted to kiss him senseless, run his fingers through that non-regulation hair, feel the lithe form against his own.
Supreme control kept him from so much as twitching.
"That might work on your marks, 007, but not on me."
He shrugged casually, though there was nothing casual about his presence here. The preternatural was highly aware of the cameras, the possible watchers from Q branch, and this man who meant more to him than most would ever be able to understand.
"The bullet is effective within a certain range," Q went on, voice calm, even, professional. "I aim to make it useable for sniper rifles."
Bond knew he was sold then and there. His violent, bloody, dark side was grumbling and growling in appreciation.
"Not standard issue for now," Q added with exasperation.
"Hopefully soon."
"What I do have is a new type of body armor. Thin as a shirt, very endurable, can stop knives and other sharp objects."
His interest was piqued. "Bullets?"
"Not close range."
"How close?"
Q smiled. "She would be able to kill you point blank with a pea shooter."
"It doesn't always have to be a woman," Bond said in a low voice, eyes lighting up with a fire that wasn't human.
"Anyone wielding a gun could, though I trust in your ability to disarm such a person before grave bodily harm occurs."
"I trust so as well."
"MI6 has invested too much in the Double-Oh division to lose them so easily."
"And Q branch protects MI6's investments."
"Exactly."
Q shot him a look and Bond had to fight back that urge to do something very much unprofessional. His quartermaster finished his examination and tracked back to the table with his laptop. While he was a technopath and could enter the data through a quick log-on to the MI6 network, he didn't casually use his abilities. He was too aware of the problem of backlash, as well as the fact that aside from a select few, no one knew about what he truly was.
Bond made another round through the test area, impressed by the assorted weapons that had been tested and the results. His interest in the personal body armor had been raised a notch as well and when Q left, he followed.
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The area where personal clothing was modified and tested was smaller than the range for explosives and projectile weapons. It was adjacent to the sound room, another area that Bond liked to visit and watch the damage done with sound waves.
Yes, he had a penchant for death and destruction, but he was a phoenix. It was in his very soul, and that soul was always hungry. Fire was his element and explosions sated a different kind of hunger.
One of the labtechs was currently busy trying to penetrate the thin, silver body armor of a dummy with assorted weaponry and Bond raised his eyebrows at what the armor took and absorbed. A multitude of sensors recorded everything and there would be piles of data to go through until Q branch was certain that while the agent hadn't been cut or stabbed, he didn't die from the concussion of the impact either.
"This is a more advanced model," Q only commented. "The basics are there and ready. We're trying to make it work for the more… intense experience."
"Like getting a canon ball fired at me," Bond remarked as one of the techs did just that.
The dummy fell over and alarms went off from the sensors.
Grave injuries. Crippling. Death.
Bond knew all there was about the many ways of mutilation and killing. He was already in love with the weapons he had seen so far. He wouldn't say no to taking them into the field.
Q just smiled briefly and he handed his agent what looked like a freshly pressed dress shirt right from the shelves.
"The latest from the catwalk, 007. Your size."
He took it with a predatory grin. "Christmas," Bond purred.
"Hardly. Necessity. I like my agents to come back alive. Preferably with my equipment."
"You can't have everything, Q. Haven't your parents taught you that?"
He sniffed. "Apparently yours haven't."
Bond smiled wider as the younger man turned his back to him and walked on. He followed, the shirt a prize he had claimed.
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They ended up in Q's tiny cubicle of an office. He rarely used it and there were boxes and plastic containers filled with half-finished things stacked on the table, the chair and against the wall. Q walked over to his desk, unlocked it, and pulled out a slim case. When he opened it, Bond looked at the small patch of… whatever… quizzically.
"Experimental long range communicator."
His expression grew even more quizzical.
Q took a pair of tweezers and peeled the patch off the plastic it was sticking to.
"This works together with a smaller version of the earpiece. Place it against your throat, put the earpiece in, and hopefully I can pick up the signals and we can communicate even if you have lost your radio or your regular earpiece."
He raised an eyebrow.
Q mimicked it.
"When you say you hopefully can pick it up…"
"Yes, it means only me. I've designed this. I know every little blip it makes. I can find the signal everywhere."
Bond studied the patch. "Everywhere," he echoed.
Q shrugged. "I hope."
Bond smirked.
Q glared.
"So you want to use an agent of Her Majesty's Double-Oh section as a guinea pig, quartermaster? Devious."
Q rolled his eyes. "Hardly. It works perfectly and giving you the prototype makes very much sense. With your track record I really want to be able to keep in contact even when you conveniently lose the phone or the radio."
Bond leaned closer. In the confines of the room it didn't take much of a lean. "I never lose it conveniently. It gets taken away from me."
Q wasn't fazed. James always admired that in him. He didn't fall for the flirting; he didn't even blush.
"Earpiece? Champagne glass? Ring a bell?"
"Are you going to hold that over my head to the end of days?"
"Most likely."
Bond grinned. "So on my next assignment I have you with me wherever I go?"
"Yes."
"You do have voyeuristic tendencies."
"I don't get off on watching you sleep with a mark, 007. And I can switch it off," Q informed him loftily. "Which I do."
He put the patch back into the slim case and stowed it in his desk.
Bond watched him with a knowing smile, but he didn't comment. He brushed close to his partner when they left the office, earning himself a warning look from his quartermaster.
"Live dangerously, Q," he murmured.
"I handle you, 007. It's enough."
Bond smiled with amusement, wide and open, and Q quirked an eyebrow, then headed for his department. Bond himself walked toward his locker. He needed to change.
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Of course the shirt fit him perfectly. It was tailored to perfection. The smooth, cool feel only enhanced the exquisite sensation and he ran an appreciative caress over the fabric.
Bond tugged slightly at the cuffs.
Yes, perfect.
He turned and spread his arms in an almost playful manner. Q leaned against the door jamb, an appreciative gleam in his eyes.
"Like what you see, quartermaster?"
Q smiled slightly. "I'd like to see it in one piece with no blood on it."
"I can wash it."
Q walked over to him, hooking a finger in the black pants and pulling Bond into a kiss. His agent responded easily.
"Can you also keep it in one piece?"
"You ask the impossible, Q."
"I know."
The kiss deepened.
"Welcome home, 007," the younger man said with a mischievous smile.
Bond plucked the glasses off his nose. "Okay?" he asked softly.
"Very," the technopath replied.
The glasses were protection against accidentally accessing security cameras and falling into a foreign network. Inside the flat he was in no danger.
Q pulled him closer again and Bond kissed him again.
Yes, it was very much okay.
"I'd appreciate it even more if you kept yourself in one piece," Q murmured, hands under the silky body armor, tracing a line up and down the small portion of Bond's spine he had access to.
"Like I said. Impossible requests."
"I do the impossible before breakfast, 007."
Bond nipped at the soft skin of his partner's neck. "Then maybe I should take you along."
"I'm not your babysitter."
"Hm, only my handler."
Clever fingers had worked open the shirt and now explored the firm chest and stomach. "Exactly."
Bond maneuvered them to the bed and pulled Q with him as he let himself sink onto the mattress.
"One track mind."
He raised an eyebrow, letting the hunger reflect in his smile. Q rolled his eyes, but he straddled his agent and leaned over to take his mouth in a kiss that told James everything he needed to know.
Q slid down his body, kissing the scars, the smooth skin, the hard muscles, well-defined under the tanned exterior. Bond closed his eyes with a soft hiss of appreciation when that clever mouth wrapped around his very interested prick. Q brought him off slowly, those fingers as maddening as his tongue, his lips, the scrape of teeth over highly sensitive flesh.
He came with a groan.
Q smiled, licking his lips as he crawled over his agent. Bond reached between them, playing with the hard evidence of Q's arousal. The brown eyes were reflecting what his partner felt.
"Let me repay the favor," James said in a low voice.
"Hm, I'm all for it."
So he did. Slowly. Savoring every encouraging word, every groan and whisper of his name. Bond's name came over Q's lips as he finally climaxed and Bond licked over the sensitive dick until Q protested softly. He let his quartermaster pull him up, blanket the slender man
They kissed languidly. There was no fever, no hunger, in the kiss. Just the languidness and deeper emotions. Bond broke the kiss and pillowed his head on Q's shoulder, his hand coming to rest over the flat abdomen, a warm, gentle weight. He enjoyed the gentle caress over his short-cropped hair, feeling pleasantly mellow and warm.
It was how they fell asleep.