He was not what Bond was expecting, this thin, young man at his feet. A dark mop of unruly hair and glasses magnifying beautiful brown eyes, bright with tears, his lanky body curled in on itself as he begged for his life. "I swear I didn't know what would happen! I was just screwing around, messing with stuff! I didn't know it was a government site I hacked into. Please, please don't kill me!" Bond stared down the gun sight at this supposed terrorist hacker and actually felt bad for him. This guy wasn't a threat to anyone. He sighed and put his gun away. Bond grabbed the sniveling man by the arms and hauled him to his feet, quickly securing them behind his back. Bond may not have believed him to be a threat, but he wasn't careless either.

He half dragged the hacker down to his car in the alley behind the abandoned house the younger man had been squatting in. "R, I have the suspect in custody. Let M know I'm bringing him in for questioning."

"He's alive? Bond I'm so proud of you, you managed to complete an assignment without killing anyone, I think it's a first."

"Try not to sound so condescending would you." James rolled his eyes, but couldn't help a bit of a smile, she wasn't wrong, "Besides, he wasn't exactly a dangerous villain. Unarmed, unskilled, and so slim a stiff wind would have knocked him over. He was on his knees begging the minute I showed up." Bond shoved his suspect into the back seat of the car, before getting into the drivers seat and starting the ignition. It would be a short ride back to MI6, and then he could go home and retreat into his newest bottle of scotch.

"What's your name?" it was a whisper that Bond nearly didn't hear over the sound of the engine.

"Excuse me?" Bond glanced in his rear view at the man in the back seat, he had managed to stop crying, but his eyes were still red, his cheeks wet. He had a small mouth, with what appeared to be very soft lips, in a slight pout as he looked at Bond's reflection.

"I'd like to know the name of the man who spared my life."

"Bond, James Bond." Bond went back to watching the road ahead as he drove through the city.

"Thank you, Mister Bond. I am very grateful to you." The younger man sighed as he slouched back against the seat, the leather barely made a noise at his weight.

"You haven't told me your name." Bond wasn't sure why he said it, or why it suddenly mattered to him.

"I'm Charles, Charles Fischer. It is nice to meet you."

Bond actually laughed at that, they both did.

M had Bond's capture questioned for the better part of a day by her top interrogators. It was hard for Bond to watch at times, even over the CCTV feed with the sound off, but it was a necessary evil in this line of work. He had watched numerous sessions just like it in the past, but for some reason this time there was a churning feeling in the pit of his stomach that made him feel pity for Charles. It was soon determined that the young Mister Fischer was not the threat he was originally taken for, but they were not about to let him just walk away from his crime.

M decided to instigate a sort of community service for him. Mister Fischer would be kept on site, staying in one of the unused barracks rooms, and work off his sentence assisting with Q Branch in a minor capacity. Bond understood what she was doing, she was showing this young man what it is they did there in hopes that he would decide that he wanted to stay on. He had no family to speak of, and orphans always make the best agents.

He was brilliant with computers, Bond could see that, and his talents were wasted doing minor IT work, but it's not like they could give a confessed criminal an all access pass to their secret government intelligence operation on the first day could they.

To say Charles was thankful to not be going to prison for the rest of his life on charges of terrorism would have been an understatement. To say he was less than thrilled about not being allowed to leave the base was also not quite correct. Bond got to listen to Charles go back and forth from grateful to annoyed and back to grateful as they walked to his new home in the old barracks.

Bond enjoyed listening to Charles speak freely, he liked the sound of his polished voice. The younger man obviously had the benefit of an expensive education, his vocabulary was high above that of the average person on the street. There were some words he used even Bond wasn't sure of the meaning, but he understood enough to know Charles was talking badly about M in the most polite way possible. It made him smile, while he respected the woman and the position she held, he could also see her faults. It would be nice to have someone else who did as well. M had already tasked him with keeping an eye on Charles when he was not off on missions, and Bond was starting to think he would actually enjoy this task.