Summary: Fourteen-year-old Q comes out to his family. Everyone already knows. Because, you know, spies. No pairings, except for a tiny mention of a one-sided crush. Sappy and fluffy humor. Family feels. Bright Star 'verse.

I actually wrote this in June during Pride Month, but I wanted to post it after "Agentus secretis domestica," which is a Christmas story, so I held on to it.

Happy New Year, everyone! Thank you for a wonderful year! I hadn't written/posted fanfic in ages, and your responses made me want to keep going, even if I was worried about diving back in at first. And now, we have part 28 of this 'verse, with more to come! Thank you, and hope you enjoy this new installment of "Professional Lil' Shit of Quartermaster" (as one of my readers on AO3 put it) and his family of "murderagents" (a word from another reader, which I love very much)!


Coming Out

November 2004

Damien Drake watched his son fidget in the passenger seat and wondered what had gotten into him.

Was it normal teenage moodiness?

Fourteen and already moving on to his graduate coursework at Cambridge, having completed his undergraduate degrees (plural!) in record time.

He sighed. Time was passing so quickly, and his little boy was no longer quite so little.

He wished for a moment that Danny would slow down. Only for a moment, though. He would never hold his son back from his dreams, no matter how much he wanted to keep the boy bundled up safe and sound in their small, cozy home.

He had to be satisfied with driving up to Cambridge on the weekends with Danny's dog, Puck, in the back seat to make sure his son was sleeping and eating properly (and to also sneak in some parental fussing like doing his laundry for him or a bit of vacuuming). That's what they were doing now; Damien was taking him out for lunch and they would catch up on each other's goings-on of the past week.

Danny shifted uneasily in his seat again and cleared his throat.

"Alright, Danny?" Damien ventured to ask. His son was at that prickly teenager phase in which anything could set him off.

"Dad, I have to tell you something," Danny announced with a weighty combination of trepidation and determination.

Damien couldn't think of a reason why his son would look so terrified.

Unless…

"Did you hack someone you shouldn't have? Are they coming after you?" he asked, alarmed, already making mental plans to spirit his son away to a safe place.

"No!" Danny said, looking annoyed. "I mean, well, yes, I hacked them, but they didn't even know I was there. It's not that."

Then, maybe it was…

"Did you kill someone?" Damien began making adjustments to his plan. Depending on how likely it was that the authorities would catch on, he may need to take his son to a country with no extradition treaty with the UK.

Danny looked appalled that his father would jump to that conclusion. "Dad! No! I didn't kill anyone. Christ. Why would you even think that?"

Then what in the world could it be?

"Are you on drugs?" He hadn't noticed any symptoms of drug use, but Danny was smart enough to be able to figure out how to hide them. He did seem a bit jittery, come to think of it. Damien would have to look up drug rehabilitation clinics nearby; hopefully, Danny would be able to continue with his studies while undergoing treatment.

"Dad! No, I am not a drug addict," Danny groaned, looking increasingly frustrated and tugging his hands through his unruly mess of curls.

Seriously, what else could it be? Damien searched his mind and came up blank. "Then what's got you all tied up in knots like this? You're making me nervous."

"I'm making you nervous?"

Danny's voice squeaked comically but Damien didn't smile. He knew better than to laugh at a boy at that awkward stage of puberty, especially if said boy had the ability to completely disrupt his life electronically.

"Tell me what it is, then," Damien said soothingly in an effort to calm his son down.

Danny rolled his eyes. "That's what I've been trying to do for the past two minutes!"

"Well?"

Danny huffed out an exasperated sigh that was laced with nervousness. "Fine. Here it is. I'm gay." There was a long pause. "Dad, did you hear me? I'm gay."

Damien glanced at his expectant son, eyebrows raised in bewilderment. "Oh, I thought you were going to tell me more. Is that all?" he asked, his voice tinged with relief.

"Daaaaad!"

It was drawn out in that most ancient ability of teenagers to express the feelings of utmost frustration, exasperation, and 'oh my god, why is this happening to me?' along with 'why are parents like this?' in one long syllable.

Damien shot his son a puzzled look. "Well I already knew that, Danny. Did you think I didn't?"

"That's not- It's not- Oh, never mind." Danny muttered under his breath about nosy spies. "How long have you known?"

Damien shrugged. "A while now. I've suspected it for a few years. Did you only just realize it?"

While his son was extremely intelligent academically, when it came to human interactions, he was rather awkward and obtuse, and his...leanings might not have been as obvious to himself as they were to his father, and everyone else for that matter.

Danny shifted in his seat, studiously avoiding Damien's eyes. "No, but I- I've always been odd. I thought that this might be one of those awkward sort of things…" His fingers twisted uncomfortably in his lap.

Damien sighed. Oh, dear. Was it time for that talk already?

"There's nothing odd or awkward about being gay, Danny," he started, knowing that he would have to tread lightly to avoid scarring his sensitive young son for life.

"I know that. But...It's just one more way I'm not normal." The frustration at himself was palpable in Danny's voice, which wavered dangerously.

Damien pulled the car over and gave his son his full attention. "Daniel."

(The dog in the back seat raised his head when he felt the car come to a stop, but since his humans were staying put instead of getting out, he put his head back down on its paws. Puck was an old dog, and wanted to save his energy for when his young master was within reach. Instead, he listened to his humans talking. Their voices were serious, and they were both a little upset. Not a lot; just a little. Puck would stay put unless one or both of them indicated that he needed doggy kisses and cuddles.)

Danny huffed out a sigh. "Don't look at me like that, Dad. You're...you. You can't possibly understand. You're handsome and charming and you've got women of all ages fawning all over you, even now. You're the guy every other man wants to be. I'm a scrawny little nerd with glasses and acne." He very carefully did not look at his father, and instead, looked at his hands, which were nervously twisting in his lap.

"Danny."

Danny groaned. "And now you're going to give me a talk about my self-esteem issues."

"Do I need to?"

And indeed, when it came to his brain and his technological skills, Danny had an ego the size of Antarctica, but when it came to his appearance, he was already smaller than his age group and he was attending uni classes with adults and thus was a little self-conscious about his looks.

"No," Danny said sullenly.

"Alright," Damien sighed, "But I want you to know that you are a handsome, brilliant, funny, and kind young man, and there will be someone out there for you who appreciates you. In the meantime, you've got me, and I love you." He smiled softly at his son, infusing his words and expression with meaning.

"Dad."

"Am I being embarrassing?" Damien smirked at his son, who had covered his face with his hands. His ears were pink.

"Yes. Very. Please stop."

"Okay. One more thing, though." Damien watched his son peek out at him through his fingers. "How did you think I was going to react? A shrug isn't a proper answer, Dan."

Danny emerged from behind his hands and bit his bottom lip, still averting his eyes. "You're military. And SIS. Neither is known for being particularly open to homosexuality, historically."

That was quite true, of course. There had been a ban on gay individuals serving in MI6 until 1991. The stigma of being homosexual or otherwise 'deviant' had had a long history in British intelligence, from Alan Turing to the Cambridge Five. Homosexual acts between men had only been legalized in 1967 in Britain, but the shadow of suspicion had loomed large for decades, especially with the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s.

"You know what I did for a living, Danny."

Damien had never lied to his son about his past. If there was something that he didn't want his son to know, he said so, and Danny knew better than to intrude on his father's privacy...for the most part. Perpetually curious, he had once hacked into MI6 to take a peek at the more personal parts of his father's files, but he had immediately confessed to his father and begged for his forgiveness in tears. He had known that his father had led a violent life before his retirement, but he hadn't known how much tragedy there had been in it as well.

(But that's a story for a different day.)

Damien Drake, formerly 007, had been active at the height of the AIDS scare. Danny wondered if that was what his father had meant. After all, there was a time when they didn't know exactly how it was spread, and sex was undoubtedly a big part of his job.

"Yes," Danny responded, frowning, "What does that have to do with me? I know you had to sleep with a lot of women."

"There were men, too." Damien's green eyes, which his son had inherited, were serious as they held his gaze.

Danny's eyes widened. "Are you…?" He had only ever seen his father flirt with women, but...

Damien put a stop to that train of thought. "No, but I pretended in order to get the job done, if that's what I had to do. Same as I did with any woman I wasn't particularly attracted to. It was the job, and it had to be done." Sex was a weapon, just as guns, knives, and explosives were.

"It wasn't in your files," Danny said slowly, his forehead furrowing as he cast his memory (which was excellent and very nearly eidetic) back to what he had read.

"It was implied and verbal," Damien explained patiently, "It wasn't in official reports because there were still conservatives at the higher executive level who cared about that sort of thing. Sex is sex, as far as I'm concerned, and I couldn't care less about who's doing it, as long as it's safe and all parties are consenting adults."

He leveled a look at his son. "Which you are not, by the way, no matter what's in that skull of yours. Do I have to worry about you 'hooking up' with someone half a dozen years older than you? Do remember that you're fourteen."

"No, Dad," Danny said, rolling his eyes. "It's just a stupid crush. I'll get over it. It's not like I'm in love." It was frustrating; mentally, he knew that it was a crush, but his hormones told him differently.

"Do you want to tell me about him?" Damien asked, hoping his son would continue to confide in him. He didn't want his son to ever be too afraid or nervous to tell him about anything.

Danny sighed. It had a melancholy note to it, and was accompanied by something between a sad smile and a pout. "He's good-looking and popular and he's nice to me. And he has a girlfriend."

Damien winced. "Ooh, I hate it when that happens. Want me to bump her off?'

"Dad!"

"Made you smile." He hit the back of his hand gently against the skinny arm closest to him with a grin, and was quickly batted away.

"Shove off, Dad." Despite his words, Danny was clearly fighting to conceal his laughter. Damien considered it a win.

"Fine. As long as it's clear that I support you, even if you want to wear rainbow stripes and listen to Elton John at full blast every day for the rest of your life. Be as camp and flamboyant as you like, or not. Whatever you feel like. You're my son and I love you. I'll even make you a rainbow-colored jumper to prove that I support you."

His knitting skills had gotten better over the last couple of years, and he could definitely handle a multi-color project.

"Please don't." Danny had by now lost his fight with the giggles, and was now grinning from ear to ear. "I get the idea."

"Anyway, don't ever be afraid of bringing your boyfriend home to me."

Danny gave him a look of disbelief. "You mean you won't be giving him the shovel talk?"

Damien rolled his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous. Of course I will. I only meant that you shouldn't be afraid that I'll reject you for who you are. That's all. This hypothetical boyfriend is another matter entirely. He has to be good enough for my baby boy."

There was much rolling of eyes in the car that day. "I'm sure that rules out, like, everyone," Danny snorted.

"Oh, there'll be someone."

"Yeah, right," Danny said, shaking his head in amused defeat. He shot his father a sincere smile. "Thanks, Dad."

Damien reached over and put his arm around his son's skinny shoulders. Danny, even though he was fourteen (fourteen!) leaned into the embrace easily. (Damien very carefully didn't wonder how long it would be before his son grew too old for impromptu hugs.)

"Thank you for trusting me with this," Damien sighed. "I'm relieved, actually, that I won't have to worry about becoming a grandfather while you're still a teenager. I always thought my former lifestyle would come back to bite me in the arse."

Danny snorted out a laugh. "What am I, if not the result of sleeping around?"

Damien nodded in agreement. It was true; Danny had been very much unplanned, but was nonetheless an extremely pleasant surprise. "Touché. I think I got off easy, then."

"I seem to recall you calling me 'disaster spawn' and 'chaos child,'" was Danny's dry response.

Damien pursed his lips, considering it. "That's also karma of a different sort, isn't it? I may very nearly regret being so destructive as an agent, if this is my comeuppance for it. Nearly."

Danny laughed.

"Do be safe, however, when you get to that stage in your life."

Danny sobered quickly, skewered as he was at the end of his father's serious gaze. "Dad, I don't need the sex talk," he said, quite literally trying to squirm out of it.

Damien let him get away with it and pulled the car back onto the road. "Ah, the perks of being a parent to a genius-level adolescent. He already knows all about herpes and gonorrhea, and doesn't think that oral sex can lead to pregnancy. He probably even knows how condoms are manufactured. You know," he mused thoughtfully, "I've never thought about that. Are they formed on molds shaped like-"

"Dad, please, for the love of god, stop."

Puck the dog raised his head and whined, hearing the distress in his master's voice.

"See, you've even traumatized the dog!"

. . . . .

Christmas 2004

There was dead silence after Danny Drake's announcement. He looked at his aunt and uncles gathered around the Christmas table at the Drakes' cottage with a defiant expression on his face. It went along nicely (either that, or clashed horribly) with the rainbow-hued jumper his father had made him as a gag gift that Christmas. (Damien had also given him a nice mustard cardigan, but Danny had pounced on the brighter one with glee and was now wearing it with pride.)

Stuart Thomas, one of Danny's uncles (formerly 005), leaned over to Damien and asked in a stage whisper, "Are we supposed to pretend that we didn't know?"

Ivar Bryce (ex-CIA and DEA) snorted. "Of course we knew. You're as gay as a Christmas tree, Danny. How were we supposed to miss it? Even Cyclops over there noticed it."

He nodded at Stuart, who had lost one eye in what he liked to tell people was a fierce fight with pirates, though it was really due to a tumor in his eye and an equally heroic battle against cancer.

Ivar had no qualms about calling his old friend out on his disability; he himself had two prosthetic legs due to an unfortunate encounter with a shark back in the day, and regularly exchanged insults with Stuart about their mutual injuries ('Captain Ahab' and 'Bionic Man' were favorites of Stuart).

"Now gentlemen," Sam Carmichael, who had recently retired as 007, chided, "I think we ought to take into account that it took Danny a great deal of courage to tell us his news, no matter how old it is."

He stood and made his way around the table to Danny and clapped a warm hand to his shoulder. "Thank you for telling us, Danny," he said, smiling fondly at his nephew, who reciprocated his affection by standing up and hugging him tightly.

"Thanks, Sam."

"You're growing up so fast," Sam groaned, "You're making me feel old, kiddo."

Danny gave him a smirk. "You're retired now, Sam. I think that counts as old," he teased.

Stuart guffawed. "Oof, that's a kick in the guts. All of us in one go, eh?" For yes, all of the adults present were indeed retired agents.

Former 003 Victoria Winslow looked at her favorite (only) nephew over the rim of her glass. "If I come across any nice boys, shall I send them your way?" she said, signaling her acceptance of the boy's preferences without actually saying it, as was proper among spies.

"Please don't," Damien said, shaking his head fondly, "He's fourteen. Any 'nice boys' you're likely to meet will be too old for him, and probably not very nice at all."

Victoria waved his protests aside with a graceful hand. "Oh, he can handle them. He's very mature for his age, anyway."

'That's not the point,' Damien started to say, but gave up with an exasperated sigh.

Danny gave him a look of commiseration and shared a fond grin with him. Theirs was the only blood tie in this family but it was quite a nice little family nevertheless. Granted, a very odd one, but nice.

"Now," Stuart said, setting his glass down decisively, "about this bloke."

"What bloke?" Ivar asked. "Did I miss something?"

"The bloke Danny's met. Do keep up, you damned yankee."

"Is he handsome?" Victoria asked with interest. "Looks aren't everything, you know, darling. What you need is a nice boy who will appreciate you. Don't be fooled by superficialities, love."

"There is no bloke," Danny tried to insist, but it was to no avail. "Really, there is no one at all."

His aunt and uncles shared an incredulous look.

Damien had pity on his son and got up to refill glasses all around. "More wine, anyone?"

The laser beams swiveled around to him.

"There is no bloke," he said firmly, "He only wanted to share this part of himself with us, even if we knew it already. No interrogations, please." He held up a finger. "It's Christmas. Besides, if there was a bloke, don't you think I would have vetted him and given him a good scare before you lot ever heard about him?"

"Dad!"

At this rate, Danny was never getting laid, and he would remain a virgin for the rest of his life.

. . . . .


Notes:

Apparently, MI5 is the most gay-friendly workplace in the UK now? Which is great. I used a BBC article for info, but I can't link to it here. It's called "The era when gay spies were feared."

A couple of the Cambridge Five, a Soviet spy ring at Cambridge during the Cold War, were gay/bi, which led to suspicion of gay individuals as Soviet spies. Alan Turing is famous for helping create the computer that broke the Enigma machine, but even he was not immune to being outed as gay and condemned for it. He (apparently) committed suicide after being exposed. Check out The Imitation Game with Butternut Cucumberbats if you haven't seen it yet.

Ben Whishaw has been in a couple of projects that touch on this issue. In London Spy, he plays the boyfriend of a MI6 agent (male) who is killed. One of the supporting characters is an old ex-MI6 agent (played by Jim Broadbent) who was made to leave because he was caught out as gay during the Cold War. Ben is also in A Very English Scandal, which is likewise heavy on the theme of scandal and homosexuality right after the 1967 law legalizing homosexual acts between men is passed. In The Hour, set in the 1950s, his character is not gay, but there's a running theme of homosexuality being shameful and also illegal and career-ruining. (Also, Andrew Scott, aka Moriarty, who plays C in Spectre is in it.)

Headcanon stuff: I know that Casino Royale came out in 2006, but since I had Sam Carmichael take over the 007 designation in 1990-ish, I decided that Sam would have retired a bit after Die Another Day (2002), like maybe early 2003. This gives him a 12-13 year stint as 007. If Bond took over in 2003, then 2012 in Skyfall would be 9 years as 007, which seems an acceptable number of years to consider an agent "too old," especially if Bond was a bit older than the average starting age. 6 years just seemed so short to go from inexperienced newbie to old dog. Quantum of Solace came out in 2008 but actually took place right after Casino Royale, so I can't go by the year the films came out. Anyway, you don't care about this as much as I would, probably, haha. Just some date-haggling stuff that goes on behind the scenes on this 'verse.