Summary: 00Q (Bond/Q)

Chapter Text

Inspired by this gif set.

"Oi! Dicky! That you? Oi!"

Bond zeroed in automatically on the disturbance, a slender man charging towards him through the press of people. The cheap champagne and blaring music had already started a dull pounding at the back of his head; now, as the man approached, Bond wondered if they were causing hallucinations as well.

Bond blinked stupidly for a second, trying to reconcile the face and figure of his Quartermaster with a demeanor that was so very much…not. In the six months since Skyfall had burned Bond felt that he had gotten to know every aspect of his Quartermaster. There was the prim and pressed young man who lectured him sternly about equipment loss over the rim of a cup of Earl Grey. There was the rumpled and stubbled Q — jittery with caffeine and ginger biscuits, dark smudges under his drooping eyelashes — who Bond would practically have to shovel into a taxi after more than twenty-four consecutive hours at the comms during a dicey mission. Bond's mind seemed to stutter, however, as he tried to reconcile this man — brash and sleazy and puppyish — with the ever-unflappable Quartermaster.

"Watch yourself, yeah?" Someone bumped shoulders with the man and he shoved them seemingly automatically, the move so carelessly aggressive that for a moment Bond's thoughts reeled with possibilities — identical twins, mimetic plastic surgery, latex masks…

Then the man was before him — an eye-searing barrage of ridiculous goatee and gelled hair and a shirt so shiny and red it thumped Bond's headache up a notch — and in the midst of it all, grey-green eyes that flickered over Bond so warmly and keenly that Bond could no longer doubt it. Everything else could be faked, but Bond would know those eyes anywhere. It was a familiarity borne from the countless times Bond had limped back from a rough mission to find Q — his voice dry and sarcastic but his eyes shadowed with concern, flickering over Bond to silently assess every little cut and bruise.

Q slid into the booth close enough to Bond that their trousers brushed. Christ, he even smelled different, like cheap cologne and even cheaper gin.

"Dicky!" the man said with a wide grin. "I'd a known you anywhere! This is a turn-up, innit?"

Bond offered his hand, and Q grabbed it with a loud slap of palm, shaking it overly enthusiastically. Bond forced his eyes away, scanning the room again as if bored.

"Christ, this music's loud, innit? I can barely hear myself think!" Q yelled. He leaned in closer, close enough that Bond could feel the warm breath on his ear, as Q dropped back into his normal voice. "Your cover is blown, comms are compromised, and we have to assume the extraction point is as well. Revert to alternate extraction point, lose your tail and be there by oh-three hundred hours for pickup. Copy that?"

Bond forced a smirk onto his face, as if Q had told him an amusing story. He nodded once, eyes still scanning the room. "Yeah, sure."

"Cool! Cool." Q leaned back in the booth, legs spread wide, and Bond suddenly placed the mannerisms. A brash young hacker MI6 had picked up in Albania a few months ago — Q had observed the interrogations, carefully culling the useful information from every admission Bond had extracted from the man. Bond had no idea that Q was such an incredible mimic.

They both watched the crowd silently for awhile, Bond holding the look of boredom on his face with an effort as his thoughts raced. Christ, he had already known he was under close surveillance, and if his cover was already blown, Q was putting himself at incredible risk by making contact. As skilled as he appeared to be, it was still a terrifying gamble, and Bond found himself furious that Q had agreed to it.

Q drained one of the champagne glasses, and then pushed himself to his feet. "Well, I gotta motor, but it was a blast seein' you again, Dicky. Say hi to Bobby and Alf for me, okay?"

Bond felt his pulse beat faster, the muscles in his body locking tight with tension. He didn't know if he wanted to keep Q at his side, where he could protect him, or push him away quickly, out of the line of fire. Q turned to go and Bond had grabbed his slender wrist before he even realized he was going to do it. He felt Q's skin, warm and damp underneath his fingertips, pulse thrumming.

"One more thing," Bond said, loudly over the music. He leaned in, voice urgent even as he kept his expression carefully casual. "What the bloody hell are you doing here, Q? There are plenty of trained field agents to deliver a message. Why the fuck is it you?"

"Yeah, right!" Q smiled widely again. "I saw him the other day, he was just the same!" He leaned in, clapping Bond on the shoulder with an ostentatious thump. "Alec is in deep cover," he murmured. "Who else would you trust?"

He pulled away and Bond could see the facade cracking now, sweat beading at Q's temples, his hands starting to tremble before he gathered them into fists at his side.

"Take care of yourself, Dicky. Yeah?" Q said, and Bond heard the thread of fear in his voice, the plea disguised in the seemingly casual goodbye. They both knew who had Bond under surveillance, and if that organization had managed to compromise the very heart of MI6, Bond's chances of getting to the extraction point were probably slim, creeping closer to nil with every hour that passed.

Bond smiled, wide and cocky. "I always do."

Q smiled back reflexively, his own rare luminous smile, and Bond felt it tug sharply at something in his chest, leaving a dull ache behind.

"Truer words were never spoken," Q agreed loudly, sketching a salute. "Catch you later, Dicky."

There had barely been a moment to think in the hours since the meet. First Bond had to lose his tail, a long process involving a vigorous footchase, a motorcycle, a speedboat, and eventually a bloody combat that had ended with Bond panting and bleeding over three corpses, his shaky fingers tamping down hard to steady the knife lodged in his ribcage.

By the time he had made the extraction point he was dizzy and panting with blood loss, aware of nothing but a surreal pinwheel of images involving Q's face, medics, and finally the blessed relief of the needle in his vein. He had woken up more than twenty hours later, bullied his way out of Medical, and had finally made it home, settling in his chair with a highly medically-contraindicated tumbler of whiskey.

Only then, with nothing but time to think, did Q's words start nudging at his memory.

"Who else would you trust?"

It was true. If any other agent, even one known to Bond, had approached him and told him to cut off communication with HQ and change extraction points, Bond would have assumed that they had been compromised.

Everyone had a pressure point — absolutely everyone was vulnerable to some sort of leverage — but for some reason it had never even occurred to Bond that Q could be luring him into a trap. How was that possible? How, in just six months, had Q managed to slide under Bond's guard like that? And now that Bond had realized it, what was he going to do about it?

He could push Q away. It would be easy enough to do. Bond could request someone else for field support. It's not like he needed to check in with Q after every mission, after all. It had just become habit. He simply found himself gravitating toward Q-Branch after every mission, his aches and jangled nerves somehow soothed by Q's dry tone as he calmly rehashed the mission under the guise of equipment check-in.

Habits could be broken, and Bond could cut Q out of his life with the ease of a single phone call. He could call Q-Branch right now in fact — speak to R, and ask her to take over his mission support. Bypassing Q like that, making the request of his subordinate — it was enough of an insult that the implication would be unmistakeable.

Bond found himself dialing as if by rote. Although he usually communicated with Q via earpiece, he did know the extension for Q-Branch after all. It's not like Q-Branch began and ended with Q, even if it might seem that way sometimes lately.

"007. Is everything okay?" Q's voice immediately interrupted the line, strung tight with tension.

"Q?" Bond felt his heart turn over, his head suddenly feeling muddled with confusion. "Since when do they have you answering the phones?"

"I —" Bond could hear the momentary hesitation. "I have an automatic re-route of any calls placed to Q-Branch from your mobile. Direct to me, on earpiece if I'm on comms, to my mobile otherwise." Bond could hear the self-consciousness in his voice, and suddenly he just knew that Q was blushing. "I — I thought perhaps if there was an emergency…it's a more efficient system…" His voice trailed off uncertainly.

"So you have an automatic re-route for all the field agents? Or just all the double-ohs?" Bond couldn't help himself from prodding the already-flustered Q.

"Well. Er. I mean, it was kind of a pilot program, one might say. I certainly might roll it out to some of the other agents. I mean. Er. Eventually." Q cleared his throat. "Was there something you needed, Bond?"

Bond leaned his head back, suddenly giddy. It might be the pain meds, or it might be the whiskey, but somehow he thought that it was mostly just Q. "Yes," Bond said, finding that his mind was already made up, and probably had been for awhile. "Dinner?"