IV
Real?
Q knew almost immediately when he'd been compromised.
Luckily, it happened on the way back home from work so he managed to put off getting kidnapped/killed for a few more hours. Bond had shown up out of nowhere to inform him of the current problem, link arms with him, and then casually inform him that the two of them were going to kill time while they waited for the threat to clear.
"I hope for your sake that you weren't the one who led them back to my front door. I don't even have an earpiece with me, so I can't assist you," Q grumbled as he allowed Bond to guide him to the nearest restaurant. He tilted his head at the sight of the storefront, and then teased, "Not your usual five-star fare?"
"No time to find my usual five-star fare, we're cutting it close as it is," Bond replied lightly as he casually steered Q to the host's podium. "Table for two, please," he said to the host, who nodded before gesturing for them to follow him.
Q frowned; he hadn't realized it was that serious. "And our cover story is…?" he prompted.
"We're out on a date. Gives us an excuse to lean close to each other and whisper, and maintain our privacy from others," Bond replied as he steered Q into the indicated booth.
Oh. Pushing away the slight hurt—it was just a mission, he couldn't forget that—Q leaned back in his chair and studied the menu. Well, at least he was getting companionship for dinner out of this; eating takeaway in front of the telly with the cat night after night tended to become monotonous after a while.
Bond waited until after the waiter had left with their orders before glancing at Q. "Penny for your thoughts?" he asked.
Q rubbed his temple. "Thinking of the best way to deal with this security breach once it's over," he lied, looking down at the tabletop in an attempt to not look at Bond. "The security protocols for the flat will have to be rewritten, I'll have to take Missy back to the vet if she's gotten out, and examine everything to make sure nothing was taken. In other words, it's going to be a long night again," he said, resting his chin on propped hands.
Bond nodded, fidgeting slightly. Q frowned, but didn't call the Double-O out on it. Then Bond sighed, and then said, "I suppose this would be the time then, to tell you."
Quiet alarms flared in the back of his head. "If you've destroyed something and now you're telling me about it…"
"No." Bond pulled out Q's mobile from his jacket pocket and slid it across the table. "There wasn't a real threat… I just wanted an excuse to take you out for the night without the question of any… post-dinner obligations," he said. Nodding to the mobile, he said, "I picked your pocket so you couldn't call R for confirmation of anything."
Q blinked. It hadn't even occurred to him to call R about the supposed threat. "So let me get this straight… you wanted a dinner with no strings attached, so you made up a security threat to accomplish that instead of just asking?" he said slowly to better grasp the concept without getting confused even more.
Bond raised an eyebrow. "Would you have accepted otherwise?" he asked pointedly.
Q almost replied with 'Yes, of course', but then, after thinking about it for a few moments, saw where Bond was coming from. "Ah, good point," he said, nodding in concession.
And if his heart still fluttered a little when Bond smiled at him, well, then that was his business and no one else's.
A/N: Day Four: Going on a date.