Title: Notoriety
Daniel Craig's Bond
A/N: Just something random that popped into my head. The Double-0s haven't had any attention so far in the Craig era, so I thought 'hey! Why not?'. A bit random I'm afraid.Post Skyfall for no reason other than I imagined Ralph Fiennes' M.
Double-0s were notorious.
Notoriously big-headed. Notoriously dangerous. Notorious for dying within a year.
No one who was promoted to Double-0 was ever congratulated. They were given a pat on the shoulder from old colleagues, a manila folder from M and a shiny new gun from Q Branch. No one expected them to last the year. Most of them didn't.
There was the odd exception.
Some agents still remembered the man who had lasted almost two years after taking up the mantle of Double-0 Three, taking down countless terrorists over his career. Another agent had managed to reach three years of employment and got the MI6 reward bonus. She had been killed within the next month.
But when talking about the Double-0s, one rarely classed James Bond among the others.
When people so much as mentioned Bond everyone in the vicinity immediately tuned into the conversation, as nosy as the spies they were supposed to be for once. When he walked into a room, everyone's voices became hushed and all conversation turned purely professional. If, that was, you knew he was in the room. There had been many instances when Bond had caught agents in small clumps exchanging gossip and titbits of information they had no right to. He'd once sidled up to a group of agents discussing the merits of their co-workers' arses (his included) without their notice, a smirk plastered on his face and a quip coming readily to his lips.
Although he carried himself with insufferable arrogance, he didn't flaunt his rank (that much) or walk through departments making a nuisance of himself. If he walked in a room he wanted something, any "funny business" (as M liked to put it) was 'purely circumstantial'.
If someone had a problem with a Double-0 they kept it quiet, contenting themself with the knowledge that they wouldn't last very long. Everyone kept quiet about Double-0 Seven out of respect. The phrase 'reputation precedes you' took a whole new level with Bond. The details of his missions (although scarce in occurence) echoed through the departments of the Secret Intelligence Service like they were lines of an ancient spell to reawaken the dead – said with whispered reverence as if they would be struck down by saying it aloud.
However, this was nothing compared to his work in the field.
The slightest suggestion of MI6 sending a Double-0 had terrorist organisations on high alert, putting in place precautions and crossing their fingers in the hope it wasn't Bond. Despite his infamy no one knew his face, and anyone who did was usually permanently silenced. No one ever knew exactly how he overcame impossible situations, but he always managed to saunter back to London, reasonably sane of mind and with his infallible swagger still in place. The name Bond was barely ever mentioned without some form of strategy following it or without some measure of fear for their exploits.
Double-0s were filled with false confidence, their license to kill bolstering their egos, self-assured in the fact that they were feared the world over. Granted, there were exceptions to this rule as well. Usually, they either lasted longer than the others or were killed quicker.
No one remembered the time before Bond when they were all a laughing-stock.
He was remarkably honourable for a person of dishonour, famous despite his infamy, charming despite his callousness and he felt more than he was supposed to despite killing for a profession (not that he let many know that).
He was James Bond, and he was notorious.