A/N: No smut. If this was a news story, this chapter would be the nutgraph, so that's what it's called. Enjoy.
Ch. 3-The Nutgraph
"So, I'm heading to Sydney, then?" James inquired, viewing his partner from the tablet screen as Q rushed through the halls back to his domain.
"Looks that way. I'll get you flight details and set up a hotel suite. I'll probably have to set up a portkey for Severus, as he'll be the silent partner here." Q held the tablet as a book in his left hand as he tapped out his security code with his right, gaining access to the outer Q-branch offices. "I'll also send you the file on the company and its owners. Not sure how you'll infiltrate this one… maybe as a potential sales rep?"
"Send me the data and I'll see what I can work up," James said quietly. "There's usually someone who can act as a pressure point of some kind."
Q paused in his rush to his office and looked down at the screen in front him. "Oh." He shook it off and continued his mad rush.
James didn't like that sound at all. "Oh, what?"
Three taps of his security code in his inner office door and Q was blessedly alone, with James on a tablet and his door securely shut. "Just, we haven't really had that discussion yet."
"Which one?"
Q took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Since we've been bonded, you've not been sent on any missions that required any sort of pressure on particular people to acquire missions."
"Ah." James suddenly knew where this was going, and he felt a bit of foreboding. "You're worried about the honeypot missions."
Q shrugged. "Mildly. I know that you're bonded to me, and that anything you do in the line of duty should be theoretically forgiven-"
"Why?" James asked bluntly. "There's no information on earth as important as my relationship with you." He watched Q open his mouth, close it, then collapse into his desk chair, the screen wavering wildly as Q moved it around and set it up on an easel on his desk. "You've a right to my fidelity, Q, and you have it."
"It's just, well, you're very good at honeypot missions," Q mumbled. "You've acquired a bit of a reputation for them. There's a Bond girl in every report I've read, it seems."
"And in all those times, I was never seeing anyone seriously at home," James pointed out. "I was only serious about one other person before I met you, and she turned out to be a traitor. But before I knew that, I'd tried to cut ties to MI6 just to be with her."
"I couldn't ask you to cut ties with MI6 for me, James, because this is what you do. This is what you love, and it's what I love, too, and part of the joy of it now is knowing I can share this part of my life with my partner," Q said quietly. "I'm also well aware that a little 'honey' can smooth the way faster than blunt force, at times. There's a reason you've been so successful in the field. And those skills may be useful here, in the interests of national security and avoiding an international incident."
James studied Q's face through the screen, and sighed. "Q, I honestly have no interest in spreading my 'honey' around. Unless it's all over you, and yes, that's meant as an innuendo. I may need to flirt. I may need to tease. But my kisses and my body are yours, darling Q, and I can collect information without whoring myself out."
Q snapped up as if slapped. "You're not a whore."
"I've certainly acted the part as needed," James replied flatly. "But I have no intentions of doing so now. If the mission requires me to romance a subject, I'm sure my partner can help me find a way to keep my faithfulness to him and meet mission parameters. Especially as it's his job to give me what I need in the field to complete the mission."
Q opened his mouth, closed it, and sighed deeply. "I'll see what I can come up with, then." He hesitated a second, then added, "To be clear, I don't want anyone else but me to have your kisses, your body, your 'honey,' or anything else. But I also know there's a fine line to walk sometimes in the field."
James raised his hand to the screen in front of him, tracing out the contours of Q's face. "Darling, I love you. I'm bonded to you. I will keep myself only for you."
Q looked him in the eye. "I love you, too. And I'll keep myself only for you. But listen well, James: if I can't come up with a solution to this type of problem that you can implement easily and just when you need it, and spreading 'honey' around keeps you alive to come home to me, then you do it. You do whatever it takes to stay alive, darling, and we'll work out the details later."
James gave him a crooked grin. "A last resort, then. But one I won't use unless it's absolutely necessary to stay alive in the field."
"Wish I could seal it with a kiss," Q mumbled, and scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair, catching his glasses along the way and dragging them off. "God, I'm tired."
"You've been up for some time, with the time difference," James observed. "Will you have time for a nap later?"
"I've got to get you kitted out and headed for Australia. While I have you on the line …" Q turned to his main keyboard, angling James' face toward his screen. "I'm booking you on the red-eye from Singapore to Sydney. You'll get there at just past 6 a.m. tomorrow, local time-or is that yesterday? Never mind, it'll be on your ticket. Either way, you'll be staying at the Four Seasons. We keep a prepaid suite there, it's open at the moment, and I have the portkey coordinates for it as well. The details should be in your secure email when we log off the call here."
James reached toward the screen again, frustrated at the lack of physical contact. "Will I see you there?"
Q managed a smile for him. "If I can duck out once you've checked in, I'll see you there. Not sure even I can apparate to Australia, so I'll just portkey. It'll be safer, and I can test the coordinates."
"I'll be ahead of you by eleven hours, darling, and you definitely need that nap. I'll ring you when I get into the hotel, and you'll come to me when you're finished with work. I mean it," James said firmly.
"Unless there's another international incident, or something, yes, I'll join you there tonight. In the morning? Whatever. You know what I mean," Q said, hitting the enter key on his keyboard and sending James' itinerary flying off to him. A few more key strokes, and the data on the pharmaceutical company, including its employee database, was sent off, as well. "There. Some light reading for the plane."
"I'll see if I can put a plan of attack together," James said. "I love you, Harry."
Q gave him a true smile at the sound of his birth name. "I love you, too, James."
IMBM
Severus found Alec Trevelyan just where he expected to-filling up on an early lunch at his favorite Russian restaurant.
"Good morning, Alec," Severus greeted him.
"Severus! What brings you here this fine, beautiful morning?" Alec asked flirtatiously.
Severus rolled his eyes. "I'm sure you can take a wild guess."
"Oh, dear," Alec said. "What's Q done now?"
"It's not what he's done, Alec, but what he's going to need us to do," Severus said, leaning back and collecting a menu from an adjoining table to peruse.
"Ah," Alec said. "Something a bit special, is it?"
"Indeed."
IMBM
"Remind me again, Ronald, why you're dropping another tasteless rumour about Harry's partner?" Hermione Granger-Weasley hissed at her spouse over coffee in the cafe that occupied the space next to Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. She'd cast a subtle Muffliato and a privacy charm over the table.
Ron grinned at his wife. "Keep the press off their backs until they can come round and address the public themselves. You know Harry doesn't want the attention, but they got outed by the magical bonding paperwork. I know it's convenient, and all, that the Ministry has those automatic spells to record the bondings and contracts, but there's a distinct lack of privacy."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Only too true, Ronald, but is this really the way?"
"It's a way, I suppose you'd say, and what we've chosen for now," Ron nodded. "Harry doesn't have time to come into the Alley himself, James has been in the field longer than he's been home since the bonding, and they've yet to publicly register. If the press doesn't get something to run, they'll go digging, and neither of them wants that just yet. It's not safe in their positions."
Hermione narrowed her eyes. "And what do you know about that, Ron?"
"Former Auror, remember? I've some secrets I need keeping," Ron maintained. "I know that Harry got an owl from the Muggle Affairs people reminding him to register James as the Muggle partner of a magical, but they have to be presented in person, and James isn't even in the country right now."
"That law is ghastly," Hermione said, taking a sip of her coffee. "It's almost like the Muggleborn Registration Commission."
"It's last gasp, anyway," Ron agreed. "Though it is a way to ensure we know who knows, and who's allowed to know."
Hermione frowned. "There's got to be a better way."
"If there is, you'll find it," Ron said confidently.
IMBM
Kingsley Shacklebolt reviewed the personnel files of the incoming batch of fresh Aurors, looking for muggleborns or any with one muggle parent. He found two, and flipped to their scores and aptitudes, looking to see if either had the potential to join MI6.
Kingsley's forward thinking in having Harry meet with M's predecessor proved to be an incredibly good move, for Harry and for the wizarding world. He wanted to extend the same opportunity to other bright candidates.
Because change was coming.
Despite their best efforts internationally, the magical world was beginning to lose its fragile hold on secrecy. Too many magicals looked for ways to exploit the rest of the world's population, and there were not enough law enforcement officers available from both worlds to handle it.
He didn't know how long they could keep their fingers in the dam, but they had to try.
IMBM
Q spent his day in analysis.
He'd found more than just the H/C systems in the blueprints on the server James had cloned. The company itself was building components in separate factories that when put together in one place clearly could have weapons applications, that fact was frightening.
The clear priority was the weaponized air delivery systems already in place, but Q could see that MI6 would be busy with multiple intelligence-gathering missions in the near future to track down all the potentials. With magical involvement, they'd be stretched incredibly thin trying track down all the potential problems. Severus and Alec would help, but …
Q was beginning to think he'd have to go into the field, too.
It wasn't that he was afraid to go into the field, exactly. Q had complete confidence in his skills, and knew he'd be an asset as an agent. No, it was more that he was a better asset behind the scenes. Q was well aware he was probably the only magical person in the world with doctorates in engineering and physics, and he put those degrees and his combined skill set to work daily. He'd earned his position as head of Q-branch, and he had no intention of losing it.
He'd have a fight on his hands if James found out he was even thinking of heading into the field as an agent.
James.
Their conversation earlier had settled him on one level, but it also opened up another level of anxiety for Q.
James, for all that he seemed to keep returning from the dead, was, in fact, mortal.
And Q was the Master of Death.
Not that anyone actually knew that, of course. Severus knew he carried the Elder Wand. Ron and Hermione knew he carried the cloak. All of them thought the Resurrection Stone lost in the Forbidden Forest.
And it had been. Until the day it simply appeared in his pocket, one night about a week after the Battle of Hogwarts.
Q had no idea what the true implications of his magical role might be, but it terrified him to think about what he might do if James died in the line of duty. What was in him. The power that could be unleashed.
The power that Voldemort knew not.
Dumbledore thought it was love, and probably was.
But the old fear of what he could do with the power that he wielded was one of the reasons Q had jumped on old M's offer to join MI6. Away from temptation, he thought; away from magic.
Because he knew full well the hell he could unleash if he chose to.